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    . ' . .J 30 ' TheLeaderand'Saturday'Anal...

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    THE FIRST BLOW IN THE FINANCE BATTLE. MO...

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    The Volcano In Venetia. Pliny , The Elde...

    nients ; let ministers , to balance Europe , take out a spoonful of land in this scale and put a pinehnciore in that one ^ -this we have all learnt to confess and Relieve—that every human being , and every nation , which is but an aggregation of human beings / has an indelible right to freedom . Let the ideal balance of Europe be what it may , there must be no bunch of chains thrown in to equalize the scales . Venice and "Verona have committed no crime , that they should be trodden underfoot by the German , They have had as great antecedents as Milan or Florence . They in their time have done as much to avert evil from Europe and to advance its civilization . They have a glorious past of freedom and empire tp look back upon , a past happiness that makes the present misery only the more intolerable .

    Is it in human nature—especially in Italian human nature—to see others happy and not wish to share that happiness ? Every day hundreds of . travellers pass from Verona to Milan as from a city into green fields , as from a prison into summer sunshine ; they pass through countless sentinels aud guarded gates into a sort of fairy country of liberty arid ease—where free speeches are made , free books read , free songs sung , arid everywhere ebb and flow through the streets a peop le exulting in new-found liberty , ies them

    asking the strangers no questions—setting no sp on — troubling them . and soldiering them about nothing—no despotic Custom-house there , no fraudulent paper money . The astonished man from Verona says and does what he pleases—goes where he pleases ; passport officers bow to him , sentinels smile and chatter with him . He can hardly believe his own eyes . or earsbut a few miles from poor Verona , arid free as a Swiss or _ ah Englishman— "CorpO di Bacco !—By the Holy Mother , it is . a

    ¦ miracle . But he must return . Every rnile from laughing Milan the enchantment dwindles , the fog thickens , the sunshine dies away ; the . old ¦ millstone conies rdtirid his neck , the old pressure oil . his heart- his eyes acquire again their sidelong stealthiness , his tongue is tied by the old suspicious timidity . Again he feels the chain gall his hands ; a rough , stern , threatening voice ¦ -rouses him—it is the guard at Yerona demanding his passport . Another rougher voice calls for his luggage , to search it for suspicious articles from the dangerous country . Home he slinks , feeling--, like a returned convict , ashamed of bearing patiently his

    slavery . - The . great abstract idea of slavery is soon grasped by an enslaved people ; but if they be impulsive , hot-blOoded , sensitive people , the thought never leaves them day . and night ; it never becomes habitual , it is never disregarded because it is habitual . Austrian papers may tell the Italians that they are lightly taxed and gently governed , that they are not plundered , and that their country costs Austria more than the revenue she obtains from it . But it is the small annoyances that bring about revolutions , ¦ when the people are ripe for freedom . It is the Gesleu cap that precipitates the inundation of blood , and pulls up the hatches , Some riot in a theatre about a Gakxbaxm song , some street fray about a drunken Austrian beating an Italian waiter , and we may

    hear to-morrow that the Piazza of Venice is piled with German corpses , and that Verona is free . The longer the tree of fire is growing , the more dreadful is its advent ; the slower the volcano , the more terrible its destroying fury . Individual men sometimes change , suddenly , but nations never . The prodigal has grown suddenly a miser before this , the ascetic suddenly developed into the debauchee ; but . we know of no instance where tyrant races have suddenly grown merciful , or i-mrrendered a sway which brought no happiness in its wake . Would that some divine influence would suddenly whisper in Austria ' s ear , and persuade her to strengthen her power by concentration ; to secure Hungary by kindness and justice ; to retrench her foreign arroi & s ; and to devote herself to internal

    improvement . But are we not foolish idealists to expect this of any nation , mueh less of Austria , who § e special fault is obstinacy , whoso policy is Jesuitical , whose Emperor is no Solomon , who is sore from recent defeats and rankling under wounds scarcely yet scarfed over P No . She will , aa , she is doing , double her armies in . Venetiu , strike heavier with her rod of iron , double her gates , and treble her sentinels . She Avill not surrender a mulberry tree or a gondola 5 she will go on heaping up mounds and waterside

    batteries round Venice and , Verona ; she will , in the madness of her irritated , pride , spread wide riipre Hapsbukg banners in tho Italian air—denying and laughing to scorn » U rumours of tho coming volcano and its tree of fire . Tho ground gets hotter under her foot , but she thinks it is the warmth of spring , and smiles scornfully from hor for . trossed hills around Vorona , and from her grassy terraces that face tho Adriatic . Misfortune is a html school , says the proverb j and tho wisest mam is ho who pays least for his schooling , Wo all go through that school , but at a very different cost . Austria seems

    determined to be longest of all the European family at her lessons ; like the Bourbons , she learns nothing and forgets nothing . She will not improve . She doubts the volcano coming , as the people of Sodom doubted . She , like they , listens ta no warning . . There seems to be an attraction about tyranny similar to that which is in vice . . The forger who lias spent a few years on the very edge of detection , being robbed by thieving servants , nving parties to people who despise him , being rolled about in a damage that deprives him of healthy exercise , Who spends his days trembling at every knock and every letter , seems to have

    gained but a poor return , in these tilings , for his anxiety , for his anguish of conscience , for his final , inevitable ruin ; yet for these poor rewards forgers every da y swindle , cheat , and lie . So it is with nations . It seems a poor reward for Austria ' s expense and danger of holding Venetia , that her officers are assassinated , her armies detested , her subordinates regarded with hatred and abhorrence . She gets no real power ; no city is true to her ; no Italian but would , if he could , let in the enemy if he was at the gates . Italy weakens her armies , drains her treasure ; yet still she draws tighter the chain , and holds Venice and : Verona as if they Arere double shields guarding tlie very heart of her empire .

    But there is a will that is more inflexible than even tlie Austrian . There is a weapon mare deadly than the German sword . That will is the resolve for freedom in a nation that deserves it . That " weapon is the sword that Freedom uses to sever the chain from a nation that lias earned a right to liberation . Austria may squander her gold in heaping up camp after camp > tnl Verona stand as a stone city girdled by an earthen city . She may darken her hills with cannon , but they will all , mound and cannon , melt and witheiV and be as nothing when the volcano tree rises , in the spring day of Freedom , and strikes out its flaming arms as a beacon for Italy . .

    . ' . .J 30 ' Theleaderand'saturday'anal...

    . ' . . J 30 ' TheLeaderand ' Saturday ' Analyst . [ Feb . 11 , 1860 .

    The First Blow In The Finance Battle. Mo...

    THE FIRST BLOW IN THE FINANCE BATTLE . MO RE notice is due to the success of Mr . Wise ' s motion for the appointment of a Committee at the beginning of every session of Parliament , to inquire into the expenditure on miscellaneous and . civil service ^ than it has generally received . It is the first efficient measure adopted by the House of Commons to bring under its supervision and control the continually increasing expenditure of the Government . Since the first establishment of the metropolitan police by Sir Robeiit Peel ,. if not before , the practice of providing for the well-being of society by minutely prescribed regulations , enforced by a species

    of military organization , has here become excessively prevalent . The consequence is , that the cost of our civil government increased from £ 5 , 660 , 400 in . 1840 to £ 9 , 085 , 636 in 1858 . We take these figures from the Statistical ' Abstract ; subtracting from the totalexpenditure the charge for tlie whole debt , and the cost of navy , army , and ordnance : the remainder is . the cost of the civil government . This is a safer mode of getting at the broad facts than by referring to the estimates , which do- not year by year include the same or similar items ; and on this showing the cost of the civil government between 1840 and 1858 , increased sixty percent . : , ...

    In the same interval the population increased , according to the calculation of the Registrar-General , about twenty-four per cent . The increase in the cost of the civil government , therefore , or the payment for its services , increased two and a half times as much as the number of people to bo governed . Those services , too , have not improved since 1840 . Tho functions of Government have been so imperfectly fulfilled , that the publichas been often compelled , by administrative reform associations and similar means , to goad , tho Government into the , due performance of its ordinary duties ., It has been obliged , in fact , to do that which it paid official men for doing . It would scem » .

    therefore , that the efficiency of the Government is not great in proportion to its costliness . We now get better food , better clothing , bettor houses , better means of travelling , better newspapers , and better services generally from nil people in business , at a less cost than formerly . t |? he services of individuals to one another become , in fact , more efficient and less costly as socioty enlarges ; the services of Government to tho pe , ople > on tho contrary , become less efficient and more costly . This striking contrast is made more striking and deeply impressive by recollecting that , in these eighteen years , civilization has made a great progress . . Wo have learned many moral and physical i'nets of importance wluch have great inlluence ovef our lives . Wo know more , and behave better .

    Our improved knowledge of electricity and magnetism , ior examplo , hns enabled us to establish < i wonderfully rapid communication with , tho most distant parts of society , which brings tho influence of tho wholo more eilectually and more constantly :

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), Feb. 11, 1860, page 6, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_11021860/page/6/