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A SEEIOUS SOVEREIGN;. moralised
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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.
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trade a 3 essential to the prosperity of all classes ; but it is only one branch of industry- —every part of which needs freedom as much as the exchange of commodities between the inhabitants of Liverpool and Bordeaux . On the vast mischief caxised by restrictions , on this part of industry , he is very eloquent , and adds many demonstrations to those alr-eady known of the folly ; of previous legislators . Every word of denunciation of the ' duties he proposes to repeal will be echoed throughout the country . He confirms the opinion that the moral and social evils of exorbitant wine duties , intended to check exchange , arid of duties on butter and cheese to collect a
revenue for the state , are enormous , and the existence of these evils is his justification for lowering the former and abolishing the latter , though by so doing he deprives the state of revenue . The latter is , in his estimation , a . trifling object compared to the former . But restrictions on other species of industry are equally injurious . The excise duty on paper is at least as mischievous as the duties on wine . Every : other species of honest industry is equally meritorious as paper-making , and should be left equally free , Mr , Gladstone and all of us see and feel the evils of existing taxation and the existing restrictions which he
proposes to abolish : but he does not see nor feel , nor do any of us yet see or feel the evils of the many stamp and warehousing and ' licensing taxes he proposes to inflict on us . We have yet to learn them from experience ; and Mr . Gladstone , drawing on a glowing fancy , fondly believes that money will be raised by his new taxes without injuring the public , just as the imposers of the duties on wine and butter believed the same , of their impositions . The authors of the : corn laws even believed vth at they would not injure the nation , and ' many years of great suffering had to be endured before they arid their heirs in the legislature
were convinced of the contrary . Mr . Gladstone goes mechanically to work , after the maimer of Peel , _ in abolishing custom house duties , being ignorant that the evil is taxation , that he inflicts on industry a great number of onerous new restrictions . lie does not comprehend the general . principle ,- at issiie , and repeats by his new taxes the evils inflicted on industry lie exults at getting ' rid of by abolishing old taxes-To all his iicw regulations about warehousing , arid his ^ . duties on contract notes and dock warrants , we must raise a general objection . He removes from . the tariff many articles which are no longer subject to duty ; and the object of all such
tariff regulations being solely to raise a revenue , the articles no longer subject to duty shotlld be released from the control of the Custom House . The import and export of commodities is one great branch of industry , and if it be not rig ht to tax them for revenue , it cannot be . rig-lit to impede the import and export for any minor purpose . As soon as duties on exports and imports are abolished , to force them all through the Custom House , and to force importing and exporting ' merchants . to give an account thereof their proceedings ,, becomes a mere measure of police . Even if it . be adopted to prevent the smuggling of any of the articles yet subject to duties it has lio other character . Subjecting this great branch of industry to restrictions for the sake of obtaining a revenue was bearable , if not wise , compared to subjecting it to restrictions , however apparently trifling , as a
matter of police . After sliccr necessity has driven the Government from the old plan of interfering with every commodity that came in or went out of the country , in order to raise a revenue , Mr . Gladstone renews Ami extends'this plan on the bureaucratic principle , that the Government must control business . Custom house regulations , ¦ as ' duties disappear , become more police regulations , mid Mr . Glapstonk , . by his new impost on nil commodities ¦ imported and exported , and on all removals" of commodities from warehouses , only extends arid confirms and rivets such regulations on trade . It is- the passport system applied to the fruits of industry instead of industrious men . It is the continuation and extension along our whole senbom-d of those doviunie ' r establishments which guard the frontiers of all conterminous Continental States . To beat down
and destroy them , aa by the union of the States of Germany under one Custom ITouso system , is modern ^ wisdom , to which Mr . Gladstone ' s extension of Custom House regulations , while he exempts commodities from Custom House duties , is directly opposed . No doubt the time will como when exports and imports will be as iV 6 c to nud from other countries , as they are now mutually i ' voo to and from the counties of England , and nil Mr . Gladstone ' s now regulations are at variance with this obvious ami certain progress .
lie boasts of striking " fetters off the arm of industry ; —he does so with oue hand * and with the oilier places on it new letters . To the old fetters' society has accommodated its relations , and his new fetters will bo found moro galling Hum the continuance ) ol the old . The necessity of douling witli iinanco while the reform of Parliament is pending niig'lit have been met by keeping down
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NE ABLY all writers who have upon matrimony have dwelt a great deal on certain discords of disposition conducing much to a general harmony in the marriage uriioiu Two spouses of equal levity , equal prodigality , equal impatience , even equal good-natured nonchalance , are not generally supposed to be welt matched , either for mutual respect , reciprocal happiness , or family progress . ' Perhaps it was from this ¦ -analogy , that one of the acutest French moralists was led to the wise ' remark , that " France ought to have a serious Sovereign . " He meant , doubtless , a seriousness in the highest and grandest sense of the word ; not the mournful gravity of exhaustion , ^ nor that passive calmness often the companion of stolidity for amongst the many varied and wifeth is
contrasts that may be imagined- between man , ere one which never answers—poorness of spir it on the male side of the . ' - ' house , matched with vivacious courage on the part of the female . For this ; unopppsing . opposition the lady . herself never either respects or admires , whatever advantage she may be pleased to take of it . The probability is * that , after making endless concessions for peace and quietness' sake , the gude man of the house is ultimately turned . out of it altogether , and the lady makes as many changes as lively fancy , ; giddy will ; and " niidy vanity may suggest , till she falls in . with some uncompromising lover , who-fascinates her senses , dominates / over her will in a style which has all the charm of novelty , and whom she admires at last , as . another humorous . 'Frenchman has said of the Dames < le la Halle and their liege lords , " parccqu'il frappe
bicn . " France has had long to wait for her . serious sovereign , in the serious sense of that word . At the tiine when L . IVkuvere , who supplies our text , wrote , she had a king who was serious enough in one way , for ,, as she who knew him well wrote , "it was ' terrible ' to find amusement for one whom nothing could amuse ; " another king , who spent his lire in making himself blase and 'itsc ~~ a sad frivolity and a sad gravity ; a third who , because lie was too slow in ' family reforms , - -though kindly dis 7 posed enough , was turned out of the house with most summary cruelty ; a fourth who died with a jeu d ' esprit in his mouth . With ' such rovnl spousesand with intervals of more lovers than a
. , Mi ; ssAUXA , ' and one publicly acknowledged , who indulged-her to tho height of her bent , till she was sick of him and of herself- — wjth such as these has Frrmee been . capriciously pleased or dissatisfied , a 3 the ease , might be , since one of her shrewdest sons declared that she had need of a serious sovereign . But she has got him at last ; fortunately with a dash of blood advantageously alien in his veins ; a mmi whom she does not thoroughly understand , and therefore cannot twist round her fingers ; with a . sombreness which interests her , with a silence
behind which there lies something besides the memory of old debauches , and acquiescence in old " bonnes fortunes ; " n silence which does not dignify-einpt ^ ncss , but . conceals . activity , which makes even Knghuwf criticise her neighbour's spouse with a hush , ris she contemplates a monarch wlio "by no means chooses to bo " read over and put down , " and wlio never allows himself to sit long enough in one attitude oven to Ix- daguerreotypc . d ; or tq permit swift contemporary historians to decide whether in those featuressometimes " discharged of all ONpressiou , " and
some-, times changing like a Oakkick ' s ,. the good or the bod is 1 o bo
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the non-essential expenditure , and by a judicious application of the £ 2 , 400 , 000 no longer required for the debt . " Unfortunately it has pleased Mr . Gladstone not to take this simple course , and to all the difficulties of the Government he has added the great . difficulty , of unnecessarily disturbing without settling the whole financial system , and many of the fiscal regulations which affect commerce . He has found himself obliged unwillingly . to bow to public opinion ; but in doing so , he has still been resolved , like a true politician , to take a course of his own . Such a Budget as his Avas never before seen . It was wholly unexpected . The public will scarcely be found ready to support it , though the great features of abolishing the excise duty on paper , and removing so many- articles from the ... tariff , strongly recommend it to public approbation ; but these amiable features are connected with so many ugly and distasteful attributes , that the scheme seems more likely to generate confusion than promote prosperity .
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Feb . 18 , 1860 . J The Leader an 4 $ atwrdcty Analyst . 1 § 7
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* Considering wlmt Napoleon has done nndbprno smoo tho following was vrifctcm , wo appeal to ijJio render an to wliolheir tho following , ana otljorfl UJfO Jt , onn bo correct Bkotoliab-:- " Ho buvo nic the idea of » v man who hurt n perfect reliance on himself , , . . Ut thoro wns a weary look nl ) owt )» im , i \ n aspect of excessive , watchfulness , an appcarancn 0 \ , . ^ Bloop , ofo \ ror work , of over indulgence too , that tfivc-8 an wr oJ exhaustion to fita ' o and forni , nnd ltmvcs mi impression on tho mind ot n clofln oUgorwr that th <> mnohluo of tho body will bran ' , down soon and f ^ nly , mtht . mind will give way under the prosHuro of iiont-up thoughts , tiQ , ~ J \ i «(««« a Tjiuli / . lif <; inl / H / ( ou .
A Seeious Sovereign;. Moralised
moralised A SEEIOUS SOVEEE . rGX .
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Feb. 18, 1860, page 157, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2334/page/9/
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