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Leader (1850-1860), 5th April 1851, Edition Country of 2, Page 10, There is nothing so revolutionary, "beca...

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      318 Ik\)E Iltaier. [Saturday,

      318 iK \) e ILtaier . [ Saturday ,

      P It It J≫ Y

      p it it j > y

      —. V . Saturday, April 5, 1851.

      — . v . SATURDAY , APRIL 5 , 1851 .

      ^Ttlilic Manx

      ^ ttlilic Manx

      There Is Nothing So Revolutionary, "Beca...

      There is nothing so revolutionary , "because there is nothing so unnatural and convulsive , as the strain to keep things fixed when all the world is by the very law of its creationin eternal progress . —Db . Aenoid .

      How To Reduce The Army Estimates. Fourte...

      HOW TO REDUCE THE ARMY ESTIMATES . Fourteen millions a-year expended on fighting apparatus , besides twenty-eight millions of interest on Public Debt , also mostly for fighting ! It is a large sum , and we do not wonder that Mr . Hume and the ceconomists generally object to it . Forty millions a-year , mostly for fighting , past and future ! And the case is made the worse , when we remember that the fighting was in the cause of Absolutism , which the People of this country detest . We are paying some forty millions sterling , annually , for fighting that has been done , or may be done , on behalf of Austrianism . The People of England should understand that . There is , indeed , another use in the expenditure—we pay part of that towards maintaining " order " at home and in the colonies . One word on this " order . " In the colonies it means bad government , and grumbling silenced . At home it means suppressing the riotous paupers of Ipswich when they are systematically reduced-to " be paupers by the deliberate bad farming . It means checking the People , if they demur to obeying laws made for the interests of classes—if they demand too loudly a share in the suffrage . Rosewater

      polireckoned that a force of a hundred thousand men , well picked , well drilled , and well equipped , might be provided at a cost of £ 900 , 000 . Say that it were twice as much , and you must still save by reducing the numbers of the Army at home ; moreover , you would then altogether redeem the country from its subjection to a Standing Army of mercenaries , the tools and slaves of arbitrary officialism . That is the end of the matter to which the Reformers should address themselves—that is the mode of dealing with the Army estimates , instead of the annual farce now performed in the Commons House of Parliament , the principal characters by those old favourites , John Russell , Fox Maule , Hume , Cobden , & c , assisted by the military gentlemen in town .

      ticians express much dislike to " physical . force ;" "but never did Government stand more nakedly on physical force than ours . The scandalous exhibitions of contending factions and triumphant impotency in the late Ministerial crisis could not be carried on , —Government would fall into contempt and destruction , —only that a Standing Army secures an absolute impunity to any scandal which the governing classes permit to each other .

      Mr . Hume and the Financial Reformers in Parliament would not be coughed down and worn out if they dealt with the question at the right end : the vote of money is but the ultimate symptom ; the causes of the expenditure are political . The Peace Party makes the same mistake . It is unquestionably better for England and the world to be at the mercy of Lord John Russell and Mr . Fox Maule rather than Prince Schwarzenberg and Radetzky , of Queen Victoria rather than the Archduchess Sophia : and unless we would place England at the mo . mv of foreign Austrianism . she must be demercy of foreign Austrianism , she must be

      defended . A Standing Army has been justified on the score of oeconomy accruing from division of employments , which sets apart a hundred and fifty thousand men for the fighting department . But at what expense in cash ; at what infinitely vaster cost in political disorganization ? The People , disarmed , becomes incapable of defence , not only against the invader , but also against its own defenders . And the soldier , segregated from society , deprived of civil rights , becomes the . slave of martinets—the slave of the lash , the helpless victim of organized discomfort .

      It is not by cutting down votes that you will reduce that evil , but by radically altering the relation of the army to society . Mercenaries must he used , in modern times , lor foreign war ; but for domestic war , or for preserving " order " at homo , — arbitrating in doubtful cases between the possessors and the claimants of paramount power in the country — the People should supply the force . Devoted to trade , we have lost the habit of arms ; which an effeminate policy has still further discountenanced . A militia is a mockery of an army

      Jiut about three years back , Frederick Hill , Inspector of Factories , suggested the mode of estubliKhing a National Reserve Force , which should not have the two grand objections to a Standing Army , -cost , and alienation from the People , and yet should be miflicio-nt . In the details of the ingenious plan we do not concur ; in the principle we do . It was to enrol residents , selected for fitness and character , in a military force ; to leave them free at most times , hut to place them under military regulations ho far as regards drill times and active service , and paying them for the time thus consumed . He

      Cellency Throws Out Some Hints Of Great ...

      cellency throws out some hints of great swarms of " men of action" coming up at Mazzini ' s beck to blow up the Crystal Palace , to break into the Royal Nursery , to perpetrate we know not' what other dire mischief of the same nature . Over the very last bumper the crafty diplomatist produces a few coupons of the famous Mazzini loan , as a conclusive proof that the mine stretching all the way

      from Piccadilly to the Vatican only awaits the application of the lighted end of Mazzini ' s cigar . Whereupon shall her Majesty ' s Secretary of State , still all flushed with his Excellency ' s liquors , proceed at once to the Foreign-office , and issue a warrant for the ignominious expulsion of a man whose offence , for aught that has been proved to the contrary , may go no further than being found tranquilly smoking the terrible cigar aforesaid ?

      Oh ! we are told , the Minister is a just and wise , a cool-headed , deliberate person ! Granted ; but are we for all that willing to consider him infallible in what concerns ourselves , to place our life and liberty , our honour and property , under his absolute unchallenged control ? Shall a man of bright intellect , of high character , merely because he was born abroad , be treated with a harshness and indignity which would raise the very stones against the Minister , were he to apply the same measure in the case of the most arrant felon , if this latter happened to plead that privilege of English birth which renders his person inviolable , even by the highest authority within the kingdom ?

      No , no ! too much has been made of the selfish and exclusive pride of a Briton ' s patriotism . Let impartial justice and true English fair play be henceforth our national giories . Let his Austrian Excellency seek redress before English judges and juries . Let him be told that it is high treason in this country for a Cabinet Minister to meddle with judicial administration . Let him be told that the refugee is our guest : that his misfortunes and our duties of hospitality give him sacred titles which can only be forfeited by guilt , most flagrantly , most thoroughly proved .

      As to the alleged offence of these refugees we shall be expected to say but little . Two men are fighting in the streets under my " windows : the one of them that is worsted takes shelter in my house against the fury of his overbearing foe . My house becomes his castle . However strong my feelings in his behalf , I shall not allow him to shoot his adversary from behind rny window . But can I , with any justice , prevent him from issuing forth again into the streets , when he has recruited his forces and spirits , and again trying the chances of combat ? Is the refugee my guest or my prisoner ? or have I any control over him beyond my gates ? or , although I clearly could have shut my gates against his coming , have 1 any right to oppose his exit ?

      THE RIGHT OF ASYLUM IN ENGLAND . A word which was in Turkey and Switzerland interpreted in obedience to the right of the strongest awaits now a new , and perhaps more unbiassed , definition in England . Lord Lyndhurst and Mr . S . Wortley think that the right of asylum has been abused by Italian , Polish , and Hungarian refugees , and would move , consequently , that Government be invested with the summary and discretional power of depriving the said refugees of the benefit of that right- . he

      Now , the question does not by any means on the fact of Mazzini or Klapka ' s being or not guilty of a breach of that international law which binds England to her foreign allies . We must merely decide whether these aliens be amenable to the laws of this country , upon the offence being proved against them , or whether they are to be subjected to the arbitrary and irresponsible control of the Secretary of State , no matter hov prejudiced or inconsiderate , no matter how flagrantly unjust the proceedings of this high functionary may be against them .

      Now , we firmly hold that as the slave that sets his foot upon English soil becomes , by that very fact , a partaker of English freedom , so the alien that seeks shelter upon these shores is , from his very landing-, entitled to English justice . It is already sufficiently hard for the foreigner ( who is made to pay taxes the moment he hires the meanest hovel ) that he should be deprived of the active right of

      English citizenship ; but even admitting that he should have no share , direct or indirect , in the making of our laws , there is , at least , no reason why the protection of those laws should not be most amply and unconditionally extended to him . Take away from England the pride of her fair dealing and equal justice , and tell us what the Italian or Hungarian should come to breathe our " fog and coal-dust" for ?

      The enactment of the Alien Bill is an undignified and unpopular measure , even in self-defence . No one knows it better than Lord Lyndhurst and his Conservative colleagues , who did not shrink from the meanest and dirtiest espionage at the Post-office , rather than brave public opinion by an open and constitutional , however exceptional , and , in our opinion , hatefully tyrannical , measure .

      Even for the sake of internal tranquillity the enactment of the Alien Bill is tantamount to a pitiful avowal of sheer impotence and improvidence on the part of the Government . Nothing more humiliating , nothing more dangerous , than the admission of the insufficiency of ordinary laws . It is as desperate a measure as that of tlie head of a family abdicating bis parental authority , by calling in a constable to keep the peace among his riotous children .

      But , we are told , foreigners , being-houseless and unknown , have endless means of evuding or otherwise setting the law at defiance . XV a do not admit this ; we give our police greater credit for omniscience ; but this is not what we contend for . Let the law be made an far-reaching as may be iieejdful ; but let there be one law only , and applicable to every human being breathing tin : air of these islands .

      Nothing can be said more decidedly to belong to the barbarism of antiquity than llicse same disabilities of alienism . 1 h not the Pole or tin ; Hungarian " a man ahd a brother ? " Why should the Minister , or the Q . ueen herself , have it in their power to dismiss him unheard , without being taken to task if they acted from unjust prepossession , from ignorance , from casual or wilful misinformation , calumny , or conspiracy ?

      Behold , the Right Honourable tlio Minister for Foreign A Hairs is hobnobbing on a . pjlass of Tokay at the hospitable board of the AiiHtrian Embassy . In the heat of convivial festivity , Inn Austrian

      ExMen are wrecked on our shores by political storms , men of lofty intellect , in many instances , more often of high , generous character . There is no earthly thing , even to their life , and , what is dearer than life , they have not cheerfully staked upon what was to them a sacred vital cause- Are they , because we do not close our harbours against them , because we do not shoot them down as they land—for so far after all does our boasted hospitality reach , and no furtherare they , as Lord Lyndhurst would seem to expect ,

      to give uj > the one love , the one religion of all their life ? Is the British Channel to be a river of Lethe to wash from their heart and soul all memory and hope ? No doubt , they will conspire—they do conspire . Conspiracy—a more or less open but unrelenting war against the evil they have left behind is a duty as heavil y incumbent on them in England as it ever was in Italy , in Hungary , —nay , more heavily ; for now the die is cast ; the war is loudly declared ; their friends look up to them , and their enemies arc on their guard against them .

      Hut , we are told , the international law ! Well , that law forbids us to allow our guests to fire at their adversaries from behind our windows . So far jih it lies in our power , bo far as our laws empower us to watch their movements , the refugees shall not be allowed to muster upon our shores , to use our muskets and steamers for a descent on the coasts of our neighbours . They may # ive us the slip now and then . Such things will happen in the best regulated families . But that is no reason why we should put ourselves put of our way , why we should remove the ( Jod Terininunof our English law for the accommodation of people ) who know but too well how to take caro of themselves . Mazzini conspires . So also Klapka : it is at least

  • Citation
    • Leader (1850-1860), April 5, 1851, page 10, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_05041851/page/10/