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Leader (1850-1860), 18th May 1850, Edition Country of 1, Page 14, 182 CH* ILe&lUT* [Saturday,

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      In France The Week Has Not Been Barren, ...

      the Republican faith ; and secondly , that nations can do nothing when isolated , the policy of " each for himself , " meaning death for all . In the last number of the Revue des Deux Mondes there is an article by Leon Faucher on finance , at the conclusion of which there are some sentences against Socialism that do equal honour to his head and heart , especially when he says that " in all epochs it has been the bad passions which have engendered socialism : socialism is the child of envy . " All Socialists will at once acknowledge othinbut bad

      the truth of this . Yes , n g passions ever can attempt to alter the established condition of things : ask the friends of order if it is not so ! No man ever is inspired with a sincere conviction unless that conviction be in the purity of present Governments , and in the wisdom , candour , and immaculate honesty of Leon Fauchers ! What but envy can actuate a man with desires to change ? if he were contented he would be quiet ; he is not contented , ergo envious . We , Leon Fauchers , we are content ; the world is good enough for us ; none but rascals would dare to say society wants reforming , and they say it because they hope in the

      uproar to pillage those whom they envy now . So believes Leon Faucher . prompted by his own virtuous impulses ! Accordingly his programme his very simple . " Ambition and party spirit , " he says , "have falsified men ' s minds ; therefore our first object is to conquer j the hour of teaching will come after that . " Crush these envious rascals who are not content ; imprison thoae madmen who dispute our justice ; persecute those fanatics whose heresies in political economy are so troublesome to us ! This is the plain speaking of Leon Faucher , who never truckled , never lied , never envied , never sophisticated , and never erred !

      182 Ch* Ile&Lut* [Saturday,

      182 CH * ILe & lUT * [ Saturday ,

      In Germany We Notice Another Tragedy Ent...

      In Germany we notice another tragedy entitled Hobespier'ie , by F . von Heinemann , and we hear of a third in progress . There was tragedy enough in Robespierre ' s life if the dramatist knew but how to seize it . Max Schlesinger has also published a new work on Hungary—Aus Ungarn—one of the best that has yet appeared . The author is a native of Eisenstadt , a little town lying between Austria and

      Hungary . He knows thoroughly the characteristics of both Austrians and Hungarians , and has shown remarkable impartiality in his treatment of both parties . The style is admirable . The portraits are drawn with the power of a dramatistespecially Georgei , Kossuth , and Windischgratz ; and the somewhat heterogeneous materials are arranged with a more cunning hand than German writers usually exhibit .

      Baron Eotvos , whose " Village Notary is so well-known to the English reader , has published a new historical novel , the German translation of which — Der Bauernkrieg in Ungarn — hns just appeared . And we have also to chronicle the appearance of the fourth and concluding volume of Gervinus Ueber Shakspeare .

      Laino On European Social Life. Observati...

      LAINO ON EUROPEAN SOCIAL LIFE . Observations on the Social and Political State of Hie European People in 1818-1 ) . Beiii * tho Second Series of Notes of a Traveller . By Samuel Laing , Esq . Longman and Co . { Second Notice . ' ) Ha . vj . nq demolished the pretensions of Scotch farming , and established the superiority of peusant proprietorship as a question of mere agriculture ; having shown that the peusant proprietors are the best for the soil , and the best for the happiness of ihe greatest number , Mr . Laing then proceeds to show the social disadvantages of the condition . Its fault according to him is that it tends to stagnation , but the stagnation of contentcdncss : — -

      " The having enough for the most simple wants and tastes of a working agricultural life , thecontcntedness oi a whole populutiou with this enough , and the legal impediment , from the equal division of property among children , to any class in tho community attaining permanently more than this enough , may be a very happy social state , and altogether in accordance with the spirit and precepts of ancient philosophers ; but it is a philosophy of barbarism , not of civilization ; a social state of routine and stagnation , not . of activity and progress . A nation is composed of families : but win re these

      component parts uu ) not united by common interests , and arc merely distinct dots upon the face of a country , joined together by no want of each other , no common requirements supplied by cooperative labour , but simply by juxta-posiiion on the land , and a common inhabitation under a common government , the population can scarcely ho called a nation . Each family is a self-supporting isolated unit , living a kuul of Kuuinson Crusoe life wn its owa patcli of land , producing in a rou ^ h way all it wants , and going without what it eanuot produce . The tastes for the habits , comforts , gratifications , and

      refinements of a higher state of civilization are wanting ; because the means to form those tastes are wanting , and the classes in the social body who can . afford to indulge in them and pay for them are wanting . The three needful elements in all individual or social progress are time , labour , and capital ; and in this social state these are fully occupied in keeping up to a certain fixed customary standard of living , and cannot get beyond it . Hereditary wealth is too . rare for the individuals possessing it to form a class in society . Any peculiarly fortunate individual possessing hereditary or acquired wealth , cannot prudently go beyond the fixed standard of living of his neighthe

      bours , because he would stand alone in society ; and equal succession of his children to his property on his death would bring them back to the class of income , the means , the standard of living , and the social position from which he had started . The want , in this social state , of a class with more than the bare means of living , and with the leisure to apply to higher material or intellectual objects than the supplying of their own household wants by their own household work is uot favourable to the progress of society . The material objects and interests , and these of the lowest kind , must predominate over the intellectual and moral . There are intellectual and moral influences and objects

      which dignify man as motives of his action ; but these must remain almost dormant in society , if there be no class free from the cares of daily subsistence , and with the education and leisure which an opulent class only can command , to cultivate and act on them . Education of an ordinary kind may be very widely diffused in this social state ; reading , writing , and useful acquirements may imparted to all the population ; and yet education may be very defective and uninfluential , and may lose in depth what is gains in breadth . Few in this social state are in a situation to enter into those higher studies and sciences which not only elevate the individual to a high pitch of mind , but give society itself the language , ideas , and spirit of a higher intellectual condition . "

      And he concludes in favour of an aristocracy as the necessary safeguard of a state from both tyranny and anarchy . There is force in his objections ; but his social philosophy sins in these two capital errors : 1 st . He is arguing from our present constitutional " framework of society , as if that were the final absolute form society is to assume , and thereby ignoring the very question of a new hierarchy , of new social arrangements ; although it is quite evident that our present society could not exist -with universal peasant proprietorship . Consequently all that he says of the disadvantages of such a condition can be taken only

      as certtiinly applicable to the present state of society . 2 nd . He is quitting the ground of certainty for that of vaticination . The results of peasant proprietorship we know . He has stated them with singular precision . These are certain , and are a certain good . Is ho -so certain of the future ? Can he so distinctly foresee the aspects society will assume in the years to come ? Moreover is not the first point which it is desirable to settle , if possible , that every one get food ? Will the possession of a group of families , highly polished in manners , amiably tolerant in morals , and fitted to be the standard of civilization—will the most

      perfect forms of government , the most engaging exhibitions of ait , the most rapidly advancing progress in science and philosophy , supersede the one primal necessity of securing food for every living man ? Not so . Opera dancers may be a charming luxury , and they may probably be reared even in a land of peasant proprietors ; but they will certainly not be reared in preference to turnips and potatoes . All that Mr . Laing says is perfectly just (/" men are to spend the whole of their lives in cultivating the soil ; but in that small if there lies a whole world of assumption .

      Against emigration Mr . Laing speaks at some length and with force ; he neither regards it as beneficial to the emigrants nor as a relief to the mother country . Ireland , of course , frequently presents herself for collateral remark . The introduction theie of large farms , as contemplated , he thus condemns : — " Ireland contains about 090 , 000 farms , of which 310 , 000 are under 5 acres of land each , and 252 , 000 are between 15 and HO acres . These are all of the class of small farms , and the farmer on each of these 562 , 000 small farms will not have less , on an average , than five persons in his famil y or on his land as his sub-tenants . There is consequently a population of nearly three millions iu Ireland living on small farms , or farms altogether incompatible with the large-farm system of land

      occupancy , being under 80 acres each in extent , lakmg the average size of thcbc small farms even at 17 acres each , they would , at tho minimum * izc of the farms on the Scotch farm system of 120 acres ( below which extent farm olticcs , houses , inclosures and working stuck , implements , and skill , could not be afforded ) , form , if thiown together , 7 ^ , 010 farms , on which , after the improvement was finished , and the houses and inclosuns built , ten labourers on each could not certainly bo employed and subsisted all the year round by ngricultural work , and leave a surplus of produce for rent and profit . Suppose , however , ten labourers in husbandry wore employed and sul ) Msti-

      or rather famishing , on the same arable area ? To attempt a change of system in the land occupancy of Ireland by means of emigration , or of town a nd factory employment , or of fisheries , or by any of those homoeopathic remedies proposed for the cure of this great social disease , would be both dangerous and impracticable . " And as to the other pet " remedies for Ireland" he says : — " It is evident that neither emigration , factories , nor fisheries can absorb any considerable proportion of the over-population of Ireland . These schemes are not remedies , scarcely palliatives , for the social disease . But in what does the disease consist ? In ordinary seasons . the failure of the

      and exclusive of extraordinary potato crop for three successive years , it is not an over-population in proportion to the capability and extent of the Irish soil , nor even to the amount of food actually raised from it , but an over-population in proportion to the employment and the means of the people to buy food . Iu the midst of the famine of 1847 , and the importation and gratuitous distribution of meal , Indian corn , and other food for the starving population Ireland was exporting food . The people had no employment by which they could earn wages to buy the food produced in the country . An increase of food raised in Ireland , by the general introduction of improved modes of farming , would in reality diminish , not increase , the quantity of employment given to the people by the present wretched

      husbandry . It is , no doubt , at present , employment misapplied ; but where there is no other employment , and the employed get at least a potato diet by it , the introduction of better modes of farming would be a general evil , not a general good , unless employment were provided for the people . At present it cannot be denied that three men are doing the work in a potato field , or on a small cotter farm , which one expert ploughman could do better , and in half the time ; but two of the three would be starved by this agricultural improvement , which would dispense with their unnecessary or superfluous services . The useful arts cannot go on out of proportion and out of relation to the social state of a country and to each other , without detriment to society greater than the advantage from the premature improvement of any one of them .

      ' * Considering that two millions of people in a population of eight millions would , by any general change in the present system of land occupancy for the purpose ot agricultural improvement in Ireland , be thrown out of employment , homes , and subsistence , however wretched these may be , and thrown loose , desperate , and destitute upon the country ; and that Irish fisheries , factories , or emigration , allowing such schemes the utmost success that can in reason be exppcted , are mere delusions when

      seriously proposed as sufficient means for absorbing , or providing for any considerable proportion of this vast and increasing mass of starving population , the government ought to pause before encouraging the dangerous and inhuman clearances of the small cotter-tenantry from the face of the land . There are emergencies when governments must interfere with the rights of a class for the protection of the whole mass of the people , and when even admitted-nuisances must be tolprated , and only removed gradually from the social body . "

      Many a grave absurdity and official error does Mr . Laing crush in the course of his travels over the great social questions ; and one of these is the enormity of \ ice in London , so paraded by police authorities and platform orators anxious to dress up a case . He laughs to scorn the notion of 40 , 000 thieves and vagabonds in London alone , who know not when they rise in the morning where they shall lie down at night ; gangs of housebreakers enough to sack the city of London ; and he shows the monstrous exaggerations of Colquhoun the police magistrate , who gravely estimated the prostitutes in London at 50 , 000 , while another estimates

      them at 80 , 000 . The same exaggeration has been noticed by Duchatelet with respect to Paris ; he reduces the 60 , 000 to 3500 at the outside ; and as Paris is assuredly neither less profligate nor less visited by strangers than London , we cannot be wrong in assuming the number in London to be about the same as in Paris . Mr . Laing justly says : — "To me the London nation appears remarkably rlististinguished for their strong moral sense and their acute quick intelligence . In these no people in the most-educated , virtuous , or simple countries or districts , at home or abroad , can be compared to the Londoners . It stands to reason that this should be their character . They are

      a people living in the midst of temptation and opportunity , and therefore necessarily in the perpetual exercise , daily and hourly , of self-restraint and moral principle ; living in the midst of the keenest competition in every trade and branch of industry , and therefore necessarily in the perpetual fxercise of ingenuity and mental power in every work and calling . The needy starving m * n in . this population exerts every day , in walking through tho streets of London , more practical virtue , more selfrestraint and active virtuous piinciple , in withstanding temptation to ( iishono & t immoiul means of relieving his pressing want , and he struggles against arid

      overcomes more of the vicious propensities of our nature , than the poor , or ricn , or middle class man m a country population or small town population h & s occasion to exercise in the course of a whole lifetime . Man must live among men , and not in a state of isolation , to live in the highest moral condition oi'mnn . 'Inn London population may be fur enough Iroia this h ; gli « ' > t ni'iiYil cihililiuii ; but . they uri ? iiiiiiviuu » l ! y an . ; pr * . L-uea . iy educated by the circumstances iu which iheylbe , hit " hig ' a mural habits of honesty and self-itstraiut . Look at

  • Citation
    • Leader (1850-1860), May 18, 1850, page 14, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_18051850/page/14/