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speedily brought to a close . Having once committed the would-be belligerents , howeverj to a contest with Austria , backed by the German , powers , the zeal xif Russia gradually waxed cold . Whatever her expectations or secret demands may have been * she was , or aflfected to he , indifferent about exacting their concession ; and during the space of nearly two months the Court of St . Petersburg has assumed a provoking air of placid impartiality between the eager expostulations , on , the one hand , against the rupture of treaties , and the stillmore eager remonstrances that have been heard against abandoning Italy after all the high
promises that had been made . Sooner than be stale-mated , Louis Napoleon has evidentl y preferred giving Russia her own terms as the price of active and ostensible co-operation . What they are we know not ; but that they have been conceded it is impossible to doubt . While Lord Cpwley was at "Vienna endeavouring to accommodate matters , unsuspected negotiations were proceeding between Paris and St . Petersburg , the first result of which is already avowed to be a congress on Italian Affairs , in which the five great Powers and all the Italian governments are to be represented . What schemes may be produced when . the proposed con-But
ference meets , we shall know in due time . we may be Well assured that if a pacific settlement be sincerely contemplated by the confederates , Muscovite interests will not have been Overlooked . Meanwhile , Count Cavdur has been in Paris , where he has \> een Jeted and caressed by the simple-minded monarch who dwells in that capital ; of fascination . The journals are full of comments on his visit , and his countenance has been watched as though it were an European barometer . On the evening of his arrival , we are toldj " the index of the mind within " pointed low * and touched even the point of " stormy , " but during his : visit-the
Savoyard quicksilver rose steadily ; and when he left , the hand fluctuated gently between " changeable" and "fair . " Of course , all sorts of circunistantial-lodkirig conjectures are hazarded , as to the reassuring tenaur of the French Emperor ' s talk with the Piedmontese minister . We pay no attention to any of them . Both parties to the ominous tete-a-tete have too . deep an interest in secresy to render any partial disclosures credible . As for the Congress , the best we , can hope for is , that it may turn out a solemn farce , and avowedly accom-r plishnothing . With the remembrance of what
sort of international settlements and rearrangements have been perpetrated by similar assemblages , we can only pray that , as England is tp be represented in the one now impending , nothing may come of it that will bind this country to recognise the thraldom arid misrule of the Peninsula . We are not answerable for war , should it occur , nor shall we be partakers therein . But . a new distribution 3 f territory by the Overbearing Powers of Europe , would only ; be a re-enactment of the sins of the Congress of Vierina , and from complicity in such sins we desire to be kept free .
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, MODERN LEGISLATION , * 'I bemevb , " said Mr . Gladstone , " no assomblyin the world transacts business to the extent which this House does . " Yet he admits , * while he praises the exertions of Parliament , that it cannot keep abreast of the mass of business which is continually falling into arrear . In a somewhat similar spirit , Sir James Graham arid others praise the House for its careful legislation , and boast that , since 1832 at least , it has paid the greatest attentiori to the public interests , and taken especial oare of the welfare of the lower classes . Wo have not the slightest intention of questioning the fussy zeal of right honourable and honourable gentlemen ; btit when they blow theiv own trumpets they generally muko very discordant music , which finds no echo in the souls of other men . We have
not the smallest doubt that the Edwards , the Henrys , and the James ' s , in their time , were as well convinced as Sir James Graham and Mr , ¦ Gladstone now arc , that they laboured efficaciously , as well as zealously , for the good of the nation , especially the poorer classes . When they made laws regulating the length of shoe-points and the wages of labourers , enjoining the use of woollens foi ^ burial shrouds , ana forpidcUng ? men to feed epjritsi they sincerely thought they were providing f&Hhe public -welfljire , and fortifying the true faitE of the people . Succeeding generations have pronouncea a very different opinion ; and both Mr .
Gkdstone and Sir James , when they reflect on the matter , will find more reason to fear condemnation than approval from after generations . _ The House may transact immense masses of business . We know that , ' on the average , it makes some 120 new laws every year , and that it has formed a statute-book for the regulation of our conduct so vast that nobody can read it through , and so confused and contradictory that nobody can coinprehend it . There are houses in the City and other places , which , like the Commons , or nke do immense
Messrs . Gordon and Davidson , an mass of business , which ends something like the statute-book , in vast confusion . We make no question , therefore , of the activity of the House of Commons ; we see that , besides passing so many laws , it discusses many which it does not pass ; that it plants numerous inquiries which never produce fruit ; and enters into debates still more numerous , which end in sorrow and grief . Sir James Graham , however , claims for the modern House of Commons a great superiority over its predecessors , and it might well be superior to
them—framers of the corn-laws , of the bix A ts , of the suspension of cash payments , and great heaps of incongruous enactments—without deserving the approbation of the present or future generations . As part of the public challenged for admiration by Mr . Gladstone and Sir James , we beg leave to show cause why we deny their plea . Sfo one can douht- ^ -at least , we cannot ; for we have continually insisted on its existence—the great comparative prosperity , order , and moral as Well as physical well-being of our really g lorious cpimntmity ; but . we cannot give the House of Commons the smallest credit for this . We knowthat it affects to make the nation great and happy ,
arid it probably believes , as it affects this—arid the result is , to a great extent , attained— -that it is really the instrument which accomplishes it . But the House and the ^ public have long ago given Tip the idea that it can by its measures provide ,, or in any degree improve , the means of providing the national subsistence . All this great and indispensable Tvork , except in some minor details , the House trusts , and it must . ' trust , to the uncontrolled and unimpeded self-interest of individuals . Its great merit , indeed , in modern times—that for which , we believe , Sir James Graham really praises it—is , that it has abolished many important enactments , beginning in 1842 , which interfered vyith the
business of individuals . As long as it went on abolishing the acts of its predecessors—removing impediments to the free exercise of self-interest and unrestricted competition—it did many great and successive good deeds . To that course , however , it was forced ; first , by the deficiency of the revenue to meet the outlay it had ordained , and afterwards t > y public opinion , in conjunction with the necessity which the removal of one restriction created for the removal of others . Sir James Graham is the last man to forget that the commercial reforms which Sir Robert Peel began in 1842 were dictated by the deficiency of the revenue through three
consecutive years , and the last man to ignore the fact , that they created a necessity to continue in the same career . The groat assistance , then , whioh the House of Commons has given to the progress and the welfare of the nation , consists in abolishing noxious laws , and removing impediments out of the way of individual exertion . While it was doing this little good , it was very activel y employed in ( loin / a ? a great deal of p \ iblie evil ,. We will touch only lightly on a few examples . ] fn 1843 the totals national expenditure ( an evil wholly of the Commons' creation ) wns 51 , 139 , 513 / . ; in 1857 , it was 66 , 019 , 958 J . Last year , too , it was upwards of 66 , O 00 , O 0 Q £ . ; so that since it beganto do a little good by abolishing commercial rostrio- ' tions , it has added 15 , 000 , 0001 . a year to its
wasteful expenditure . Every tax ordained , or oontinued , as we now know practically , from the beneficial effects of abolishing taxation , inflicts on the community a vast deal more injury than is represented by the sum it takes from the people . Yet , in the face of this experience , the House of Commons has gone on year by year increasing the expenditure , and continuing unnecessarily the evils of increasing and enormous taxation . About coeval with the reform of the Parliament , railways , the splendid triumph of modern art , came into notice . The people everywhere began to build thorn . How did the Commons promote the admirable work P It threw all kinds of obstacles in the way , and fettered the enterprise with
numerous conditions , the ofispring of the most intolerable ignorance . Mr . Gladstone was himself the great agent for establishing the noxious regulations of a maximum rate of profit The House taxed the enterprise _ enormously , for granting its consent to accomplish so great and good a work , and helped to make that which is an honour to this age arid nation only ruin to thousands of individuals who promoted it . The result of the ignorant and selfish interference of the Government is to distort and mar a conspicuous growth of natural society . We are aware of a necessity to apply to the House to get permissiori to take land , &c , but while it should have been the business of the Legislature , to do away with this necessity in cases where
the public convenience ought to override the monopoly established by the legislature , the House of Commons did very frequently obstruct the enterprise , and very often sacrifice the public good to enrich individuals . In the whole history of our Legislature , through times of the darkest ignorance , nothing more systematically erroneous , mischievous , and corrupt than the conduct of the House of Commons , in reference to the ; construction of railways , is to be found . The legislative absurdities of the James ' s , and the legislative follies of the ignorant Edwards and Henrys , will appear to the next generation to be far overtopped by the conduct of the legislators of our days , in reference to this noble < work .,
We will refer now to only one more illusti ation . There cannot -be the shadow of a doubt that every individual ; entering into voluntary engagements has a full right to detennine for himself how far he will go . In the old spirit of opposition to trade , however , which animated alike ilie aristocracy , the Legislature and the judges ,- because they one and all felt that it was a power superior to them , it had been settled that if an old man with IOjOOOZ . lent 1 , 0007 . to an active young nian to assist him in his business , on the riatiu-al condition that he should share the advantages , the law held the old man
responsible for all the engagements of the young one , to thq extent of his whole fortune . In the progress of trade , this princip le was found so obnoxious , alike to common sense and useful action , that it was continually , by voluntary agreements of various kinds , setaside . Such agreements became so numerous as to make the legal guarantee of responsibility to the full extent of means a farce or a snare ; and the " occasions were so many on which the Legislature was called on to overrule it , that it was at length obliged to sanction the principle oi limited liability . How has it worked our the principle ? We answer , that a greater mass ot incongruity than the several joint-stock companies acts , including banks , wLich are all founded on the principle of limited liability , including the Act for
enabling the 'Board of Trade to giant charters , the Act for expressly establishing limited liability , the windijog-up Acts , and all the many modern Acts connected with this one subject , in not to be found even in bur incongruous statute book . All these Acts , and many more of a similar character , have been passed under the full light of modern knowledge , which has shown that legislation never interferes Avith trade without injuring the commonwealth , and while acknowledging the conviction
that this light is a lig ht from Heaven , and can not lead astray . The habits , however , which the House inherits with its forms from remote ages , nre more powerful than the convictions of reason 5 nncl it has increased and multiplied , in tho nmctoenttt century , restrictions on business , all winch , in tno eighteenth century , wore demonstrated to be invariably misohievous . It has done tins evil , too , with the words of assent on its lips to tho doctrines Qf fvoo trade , and while glorying in the greatest success it over achieved , from allowing them 101 n time to prevail over its old and evil luibits . To ' show the erroneousness of Sir Jnines Oranams laudation ,, and tho ihjuriousness of tlio notiyity of whioh Mr . Gladstone boasts , wo could » luIt . W illustrations ; but we content ourselves with nslung tho attention of thoughtful men to those few . .
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STREET VIEW OF ITALY . —No . IV . VAVAh STATES . ' # Ti / b famous Lord Chesterfield summed up his impressions of a tour through Franco some loursooro years ago , by tho remark that m that country ho had observed all those symptoms wtowu
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434 THE LEADER . [ ISo . 471 , April 2 , 1859
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), April 2, 1859, page 434, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2288/page/18/
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