On this page
-
Text (2)
-
Untitled Article
-
Untitled Article
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
-
-
Transcript
-
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
Untitled Article
Russia . After this came the political , as well as the military misdirection of the Russian war , and with all these disappointments it is no wonder that national enthusiasm declined . The process was hastened by the important fact that not a single independent member of Parliament , of any conspicuous talent , paid enough attention to foreign affairs to be looked upon as any authority upon the multifarious subjects that continually deserved attention .
The selfish , passive , non-intervention doctrine , on the whole , suited the Whigs—semi-rational as thinkers , and proverbially feeble in action . They could evade it when it suited their purpose , and it served the object of checking the demand for a great national policy , founded upon a morality too large to suit the sinister interests of a few aristocratic families . The Tories have always seen that the Whig-Manchester management of foreign affairs tended to lower opposition in Europe ; but they preferred its feebleness and fatuity to a bold action in
opposition to their own reactionary views . Lord Palmerston possessed energy enough for a successful Minister of the last generation ; but his undisguised antagonism to Parliamentary Reform left no doubt that he would ,. , if possible , avoid any appeal to the nations of Europe , and the fundamental principles of human right . To these various circumstances must be added the action of the commercial spirit in promoting a hand-to-mouth policy * and regarding a small present evil as far more important than any much larger prospective damage .
Born in 1784 , Lord Palmerston has long passed the period in which men ' s minds grow with the times , and he presides over a Cabinet selected upon the principle of taking in a variety of persons . whom it would have been dangerous to leave out , and who were never remarkable for representing the same principles or advocating the same views . Ayith such a condition of the public mind , and of the Cabinet , the approaching Congress cannot be viewed without alarm , and that sentiment is increased by the statement that our country is to be represented by Lord Cowley , a third-rate diplomatist , and a complete nonentity in the stirring world of European thought and action , to which he never contributed an idea or gave a serviceable direction .
How seriously Russia looks at the Congress may be seen by an article ip the Jnvdlide Russe , which says , " above all , the Congress will have to enter upon the question of ri g ht . The Congress of Zurich decided that the rights of the Grand dukes are reserved . England , on the contrary , maintains that the people have a right to choose their sovereign and their form of government . That power reminds the others , and that with some reason , that France , Sweden , and herself have already applied that principle . . . . This will be the first danger for the Congress , because Austria , France , and the Pope , and with them
Spain , Portugal , and Naples , will not fail to maintain that the rights of the dispossessed dynasties are sacred and immutable . " The Invalide , after declaring that France and . Austria would not be entitled to restore the Dukes by force , without the consent of Europe , adds , that the matter must be referred to the Congress . " But the Congress , while confirming the dynastic rig ht , will find itself involved in great difficulties , if it wishes to restore the Grand Dukes by force of arms , the influence of one power will carry with it the others . War will break out again , and we declare that it -will then become a war impossible to neutralise or circumscribe , " The same paper adds , by way of throwing fuel on the fire , that the Turkish
question , anu the Treaty of Pane ought to be considered in Congress as well as the affairs of Italy . With these elements of difficulty and mischief at work—which the French Government evinces its appreciation of by vigorously pushing its warlike preparations—British safety depends upon the unquestionable morality of its policy , event more than upon any accumulation of the apparatus of war . To support the absolutist theories of Austria , Rome , and Naples would be suicidal , and happily impossible , * and to play one despot . oil Ugainst another , without espousing any valid principle , would be even more ignominious , and 'Scarcely less perilous . If we proclaim the right 4 > f the Italians to change their rulers if they XtaaajB i and ... can , we ought to do no leas for the Hungarians , whom Francis Joseph seems
determined to goad into rebellion ; nor for the Poles , whom the Emperor of Russia refuses to conciliate , and who might not be kept quiet if a war of liberty broke out . Lord John Russell ' s declaration about Italy ought to be" something better , than a mere ebullition of temporary excitement ; but do the people suppose that the Court , with its German dynastic predilections , or Lord Palinerston ' s Cabinet , is prepared to tell the absolutist monarchs that if they force England , against her will , into a war , it shall be a war of principle , in which her alliances shall be with nations , and her efforts
directed to the establishment of a public law , capable of supporting the weak against the strong , and of securing the indefeasible right of every people to assume , if they can , the management of their own affairs ? It is our duty to go to the Congress—we could scarcely avoid it with safety ; but if the people are apathetic , it is likely to prove a dangerous snare . We shall be most safe , as well as most dignified , by becoming the bold and unflinching exponents of public justice . We should determine to have peace , if possible , but be quite prepared , if necessary , to offer the alternative of the only sort of war in which we should deserve victory , and which would offer the best prospects of success . .
Untitled Article
FINANCIAL REFORM . . Mr . Bkight has disposed , very satisfactorily , of the fallacies of the Times , Saturday Review , Spectator , and Economist . He has shown conclusively that the statement of the Board of Inland Revenue , on which two of those journals built so much , has no good foundation , and supplied facts to justify the conclusion , that the increased consumption of sugar , tea , and tobacco , which is more than double what it was in 1838 , has taken place almost wholly amongst the working classes , and that they actually pay the large proportion , he stated , of our indirect taxation . He did not touch the great principle of political economy , — that labour is the source of all wealth , and , consequently , pays all taxation ; and ultimately , therefore , pays all that is deducted by the State from the annual income of the owners of property . He stated , on the authority of Mr , iSewmarsh , one of our most renowned statisticians , that 75 per . cent of all the families of England and Wales live in houses below the value of . £ 10 , and of these 15 per cent , only live in houses above the value of . £ 6 . Mr . Bright assumes , and with apparent reason , that were the comparison extended to the whole empire , 80 per cent , of the people would be found to be living in houses below the value of . £ 10 . At this hour , accordingly , taking the proportions roughly , twenty-four millions of people live in houses below the value of . £ 10 , and six million people live in houses above the value of . £ 10 . If not an exact transcript of the actual fact , this ' represents it tolerably correctly ; and his
conclusion is , that these twenty-four millions consume much more of the heavily-taxed articles referred to than the six millions who pay , according to the journals of the aristocracy—as they undoubtedly receive—the bulk of the taxation . Wo believe , however , that it will , never , again be said by any man in his senses , and tolerably well acquainted with the condition of the people of England , that the higher classes pay the chief portion of the taxes , and that taxation is only a deduction from their incomes .
xt has been asserted , indeed , by a great economist , Mr . Ricardo ( not by Adam Smith ) , that the " natural price ( wagqs ) of labour is that price which is necessary to enable the labourers , one with another , to subsist and perpetuate their race , without either increase or diminution . " The same authority also assorted that rent is only the difference between the produce of oapital lenst productively employed on land , and necessarily employed to subsist society , and the capital most productively employed on land ; Whence it
follows , that all the produce of industry , except the amount of this diflcronqo , whatever it may be , which is rent , and except the subsistence of the labouror , naturally belongs to the capitalist . On this doctrine , as long as , the labourer receives enough to subsist on and continue his race , without increasing in number , and as long as the landowner receives the above-stated difference , all the wealth of the world is the property of the capitalist—and , as the Times has stated , he pays all
taxation . The labourer , according to the definition , can pay none and live . Such definitions and deductions describe , not unfairly , the actual distribution in this country of the annual produce of labour , and _ in obedience to it the upper classes and-their writers niake their extraordinary deductions . All wealth , except a mere subsistence for the labourers , is the property of the upper classesbut of the annual produce of labour , Whatever may be its total value , the State , i . e . the Parliament of the gentry , as we have shown , annually seizes and distributes a very large sum ; and by the continued action , of the State , year after year , through taxation , that distribution is made , taking from the poor and giving to the rich , which Mr . Ricardo called natural , and journalists now ' assume to be just .
This effect is very clearly demonstrated by Mr . Bright , though we cannot say that he had the demonstration in view . He showed that siuce the alteration was made in our fiscal system by Sir Robert Peel—that since the Corn Laws were repealed , and indirect taxation reduced—the condition of the working classes has been much improved . They get more wages , and their wages go further . Before that period , therefore , the system of taxation , of which the Corn Laws were a part , continually appropriated and distributed a still greater proportion of the annual produce of industry amongst the rich than since that period .
But much unproved as their condition now is , in consequence of less injustice being perpetrated on them , it is still , as we all know , much inore to Ue deplored than commended . By dint of inordinate taxation wages are continually kept down to what Mr . Ricardo and his disciples describe to be the natural rate ; and the present condition of the multitude , though it has been much improved by repealing taxation , which should encourage the upper classes , and encourage statesmen to do them justice , is thus described Ly Mr . Bright . The extract is long , but the description is accurate , and worthy of close consideration : —
Look at the condition of the labourer as compared with the condition of what is called the upper classes , or even of the middle classes . I live close to , in fact within the bounds of a large manufacturing town . At this moment everybody who can work is Well employed , and wages , I am happy to say , are such as , looking back to past years , are considered highly satisfactory ; the condition of the people is much better than it has almost been known before during my lifetime ; yet , under all these favourable circumstances , look at the condition of the labouring man and his family ? Look at the almost inevitable precariousness of his employment , and look at the fact
that the moment his health fails him Ins income ceases ; or if he falls ill for a day or two , instead of going to his doctor , or to his bed , and resting quietly at home till the little ilness passes away , hu struggles on . His family dopends upon his every dny's earnings for his every day ' s subsistence , and in hundreds , nay thousands of cases in which we all of us who are here recover from any slight indisposition , a man thus tied—hammered as it were tp the gnlling oar of life—he cannot lay by for a day . His constitution has deoper and deeper inroads made upon it ; ne disusedand
becomes permanently enfeebled ami , multitudes of them , as you know by the rot urns ol mortality , do not live more than about ono-hajt the years that persons no stronger ofr more robust in constitution do live who arq in happier circumstances with regard to their social . and pecuniary position . Lot me beg of you to consider the incidents to wluon the labouring classes in every country aro subjected ! —the dangers which they meut continually in uunost all thoir employments—the incessant struggle wlucn thov have to maintain and keep themselves from wotk
that which most of them greatly dread—the - house— . ( Hear , hoar ) . Consider nil this , and then ask youselvos , yo of the middle classes , whether it is not fitting that we should combine together to say to the rulers of our country , that we , all who nave property , aro willing to contribute to the nccoBsary expenses of the State ; but that henceforth wo win nover consent to any law that will intornoso botwecn tho exclmngo of the industry of every man in England for tho industry of every man out or lingmna - ^ whloh shall permit tho hand of tho tax-gat horer to lesson the lfttlo comforta which a man s Iftl ) 0 U * can baroly bring to supply his nocossitioa—( L-ouu and prolonged , encoring ) . Such is now—after statesmen have toiled _ and
philanthropists have wept for ages—tlie condition of the labouring multitude . It is plainly too result of our fisoal system . It ifl uot tho consequence of any doom or natural laws from wuicu tho multitude cannot oaoapo . JNaturo lias not inseparably oonnectcd industry with destitution .
Untitled Article
. . ' V ' ' ¦ ' ' ' ¦ ' . . ' ' ' ' 1346 THE L . E APE K : [ Wo .: B 07 .. Dec . 10 , 185 $ .
-
-
Citation
-
Leader (1850-1860), Dec. 10, 1859, page 1346, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2324/page/14/
-