On this page

• Text (3)

  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.

  • 

    ^BT£t7&UY 14, 1857,] THE LEADEB, 159

  • 

    WILT j S, WIVES, AND I'lUKSTS. Tine Lord...

  • 

    MOLDO-WALLACHIAN AGENCIES. TmE French Go...

• 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.

    °*

    ism which is agreed upon by elderly baronets m amber drawing-rooms , but which is not calculated to attract to itself the enthusiastic support of any party in or out of the Legislature . Sir Ea-tidlex" Wilmot is a ^ Reformer —sincere and vigorous—but a " Reformer of that class which would trim a ' measure ' into an elegant pattern , and send it up to the House of Lords etherealised and perfumed , with no rough sufaces or sharp edges . Precise ^ similar in spiritis jMr . Gtieobge Habris *

    who adds another to the long category of theoretical Beform 33 ills , and desires that every learned order and every profession shall depute its delegates to the House of Commons , treating the nation , the body of the commonwealth , as a mere numericalmajority not comparable in importance with a Faculty or an Academy . Mr . Harms is not so practical as Sir EaudiiEY Wiimot , who solicits the support of Lord Bkougkham : for a programme which

    is infinitely too liberal for the present Cabinet . He is infected , however , with the fallacy that Party-Government has ceased to exist , forgetful of the truth that Toryism and Whiggery divide the Legislature as completely as ever , and that what seems a fusion is only a floating fragment which occasionally unites the political continents on the right and left of the Speaker's chair . However , he strikes off , after some preliminary

    pages , into tlie question of Parliamentary Beform ; proposing to disenfranchise totally or partially a number of small and decaying boroughs—leaving fifty seats for distribution among- those counties and boroughs which are now imperfectly represented , or not directly represented at all . Enlarge tlie basis of the suffrage by reducing the electoral qualification ; but do this in a nibbling , hesitating way , is the counsel of Sir Eabd-IEY Wimot . Sir Eabdx-et now turns a

    comer and reaches the Ballot . lie'hates it , does not understand it , insults it , and passes on , without adducing the ghost of an argument in disparagement of the principle . The Ballot , Sir Eakdi / ey , has been adopted us a Liberal test , and , at the next election , it will go hard with many candidates , unless they advance a few steps on this point , and meet the popular desires .

    The ideal session , supposed by . tho Recorder of "Warwick , would restore the system of transportation , abolish tickets of leave , put a check on the royal prerogative in cases of murder , reform the law of divorce , purge tho ecclesiastical courts , enlarge the jurisdiction of county courts , cheapen Chancery , establish

    a department of public justice . These are the views , this is the ideal , of an irresponsible Whig ; what should we expect from the same Whig in official fetters ? It is to be feared that , without an agitation spreading far and wide , and resounding like that of 18 : 30 , tho policy of the Whigs will ' continue tamo , slow , and unsatisfactory .

    As a rider to this statement , we wiah to notice tho taunt so frequently flung at the Liberal party . It has no recognised or palpablo organization . " We know , and have acknowledged that fact . But why is it a fact ? Because the Liberal party has never been in power ; tho Wings and Tories have held office alternately for centuries ; the Liberals have been invariably ex . ch . idod . On this account , unlesa rallied round the standard of some exciting question , they arc necessarily scattered , and their eour . se of action is as necessarily indefinite .

    An Ideal Session. Srrt John Eaiidlis Y W...

    * The Vntii Theory of Rqirauittaiion . lt y CJcorgc Harris . Longman and Co .

    ^Bt£T7&Uy 14, 1857,] The Leadeb, 159

    ^ BT £ t 7 & UY 14 , 1857 , ] THE LEADEB , 159

    Wilt J S, Wives, And I'Luksts. Tine Lord...

    WILT j S , WIVES , AND I'lUKSTS . Tine Lord Ou , VNCP : i / i , oit deserves to bo a fsivouril . o \ vii : li the clergy ; lit ) haw produced his

    annual three bills on . the subjects of Church discipline , testamentary jurisdiction , and marriage and divorce . He proposes to place the procedure against clergymen , guilty of immoral conduct or of bad doetrine , under some Mnd of mile . Priests in the pulpit would no longer be persecuted by dissenting

    churchwardens , but a clergyman must take the initiative "before the bishop ; and prosecutions for immorality would cease to be the vent for private spite . But perhaps the greatest favour which the Loud Chance i / lor has conferred upon the clergy is , that lie has not yet got his bill ready . It is most desirable that there should be a reform of the

    law bearing upon the gentlemen in black , but a bill by the Lord Ciia : rce : l : lor is as cerrtain a preventive of any improvement as any finality ever yet invented . The abuses that have made -wills the food of rats ; the legacies and means of legatees , the food of proctors ; the expenses the food of courts , with unsettled , and barbarous , and dilatory jurisdiction , are perfectly well known to every reader of JBlea 7 c Mouse and David Coppe ? y ' ield ; that is , to all the world . The Lokd CitAjtfCELiiOit has to amend this ; but what does he do ? He retains the diocesan

    districts , he retains the proctors , and , by way of improving the confusion , he creates a new court where no new court is wanted , puts at its head a common-law judge , and places it under the Court of Chancery . But the best of the joke is the legislation on the subject of marriage and divorce . It would he quite waste of time to examine the

    drafts of legislation , which are nothing : more than dreams . Tliey would have been greeted in the House of Lords with a shout of laughter— -were it not that all the law lords , yes , even the reactionary Lord St . Leokajrus , really wash to get on with reforms— and amusement at the Chancellor ' s vagaries is crushed in indignation at the waste of time . The man means well . He had in

    his Bill , a provision by which any married couple , on agreement , might obtain a divorce for all practical purposes—except marrying again . No doubt thia proposal creates a great deal of alarm . People are content to see tho hideous amount of vice which goes on at present ; the domestic discord ; tho collusion . The man who sells his wife , and , disappointed of payment , brings an action for criminal conversation , is condemned to maintain the same happy home which lie has exposed to the public ; and that is said to be

    in the interest of " morality ! " The poorer husband , who , like poor Mr . Tennant appeals to the Mlarlborougli-streefc police court against the wife that ; pursues him with drunken vilenesses and wastes his substance , must continue to exemplify conjugal fidelity . A direct and orderly separation is what tho public mind is not at present prepared to tolerate . Tho proposal horrified Lord CA / MruiiXL , and tho CiiAKOKLLOit himself mentioned the provision with that modest voice which invites condemnation . But there

    is nnothor provision which ho did not Include in his bill . in the case of LiNd vrrsm Choiceu , Sir . Fium ) iciucic Thicstoer , the high Conservative , expressed tho embarrassment and difliculty which he felt in bringing before a court of law a case of criminal conversation . He described the exposure , so disgraceful to every person concerned , oven to the plain till

    who is appealing for jiiHtice . " . 1 always feel oppressed with these considerations Avlienevcr 1 have to open a case of this kind . " It is tho 0110 abuse winch most clwillongoH instant removal . Tho " Loud (' iianoi ; iyu > ji \ s bill does nothing for it . He persecutes wives and husbands with another of his tentative clauses , leaving { , liein to every misery created b y the nnst or tho pros out law . tantalizing them with

    hopes of relief , and stopping the way df those wlio would really give us the reform . If priests axe his favourites , he is less considerate to wills , but cruellest of all to wives .

    Moldo-Wallachian Agencies. Tme French Go...

    MOLDO-WALLACHIAN AGENCIES . TmE French Government has declared itself favourable to the Union of the Danubian Principalities . The discussion , therefore , has advanced a step since we last adverted to it ; but no new points have l ) een raised for investigation . However , considering the position held by England with , reference to Moldavia and WallacTiia , there are some circumstances indirectly bearing on the subject , to which we invite tlie attention of the reader . It would be well if , while endeavouring ; to reform the Turkish Empire , we undertook to reform our own agents in Turkey . The East , which we propose to fashion after our own image , must have a strange power of transforming the strangers who inhabit it , since it lias so powerful an action on ^ Englishmen , who boast that wherever they go they always remain emphatically and positively English . If we cannot say what we gained by the last war , if our taxes . have "been augmented in

    order that thousands of souls might perish from cold or hunger in the East , those who had the good fortune to return are able to tell xis that they saw with their own eyes the misery of the Turks , and found the representatives of England more Turkish than the Ottomans themselves . It appears that many of these gentlemen , instead of endeavouring to introduce into Turkey our customs and civilization , have thought it more agreeable to become . Turks' themselves , and have been

    so accustomed to Eastern life that they have actually succeeded in getting themselves called Pachas . Our agents , of all classes , in Turkey , would seem to have formed , by means of reciprocal services and protection , a species of Mutual Annuity Society , with ihe assistance of which they slip from under the control of the central Goveiuimentj and once installed in office , they remain there for life , no matter what their conduct may be . Doubtless it would be a pernicious policy to

    make frequent changes in our consular establishments , but our present system of perpetual service in such situations is often seriously inconvenient , when we consider that these agents are virtually free from , controlespecially in Turkey , where so many temptations abound and so many facilities are afforded for intrigue . After too long a residence they lose sight of their mission , aud become accustomed to feel aud see things in the same light as tho natives , while

    frequently they create for themselves interests as contrary to those of tho couutry they resido in as to those of iho country they represent . The vices of tho system are nowhere inoro apparent than in tho Danubian Principalities , where lifo annuities are secured to tho representatives of British interests , who , even if wo suppose them to have onco possessed tlie necessary qualifications , have , in twenty or thirty years , become necessarily disqualified for tho posts in which they have been forgotten . In tho Principalities our representatives arc nob

    mere commercial agents ; they have also a diplomatic mission , and are pitted in that capacity against other consuls generally tho niorit eminent of European diplomatists . At the conclusion of tho Avar , Prance , Austria , JAusain , Prussia , and eyen Belgium , HCMit special agents to deal with tho exceptional . state of things which had arisen in Moldo- Wnllttohia—England alone employed on thia special nervico her consuls of twenty years' standing . These gentlemen thus fancied theinsolvoH in the palmy days of their iirnt appointment , and limited their action to tho

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), Feb. 14, 1857, page 15, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_14021857/page/15/