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Leader (1850-1860), 19th November 1853, Edition Country of 2, Page 12

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      The Truth About Cuba. Tjie Government Of...

      all that Lord Howden lias been labouring to do , just as they may object to that blockading squad ron which does not so much keep down the slave-trade in Africa or Cuba as serve to set down a King Kossoko and to set up a King Docemo in . Africa , and to undergo the studied insults from the officers of her Majesty ' s ally in- Cuba . But there can be no question that Lord Howden and his superiors are pursuing exactly that course which they have long been pursuing , and in which they have been countenanced by successive Governments of the United States . The case is a good pendant to that of Mr . Hamilton and Lord Malmesbury , as an

      illustration of diplomacy . Certain stories are circulated in Washington , the very belief in which is injurious to the common interests of England 4 and America . The ordinary rule would have been to take no notice of those tales , just as polite people look unmoved when some vulgar fellow olurts out indecorous language in company ; and if by chance somebusyman shouldpointout th erumours to a diplomatist of the old stamp , he would receive a courteous , cutting reply , implying that none but idlers read newspapers . Lord Howden knows better . He is well aware that England and America are not likely to disagree if they really understand the facts between them , and , not

      content with answering Mr . Corbm ' s question , he puts the answer in a form as complete and explicit as possible , telling exactly what is _ and what is not the fact . Diplomacy has no friendships ; but Lord Howden , being a hearty , straightforward man , does not think that the truth will be obscured in American or English sight , by letting it be seen that he is on terms of friendship with " mv dear Corbin "— -on terms of friendship with " my dear Corbin — -on terms oi

      frank , unstudied familiarity . Diplomatic reserve is probably outraged at these direcfrproceedings , but to us it appears likely that England and America have gained additional security by this frank and unreserved declaration of the simple truth . Certainly no one fancies that Mr . Corbin or Lord Howden is the worse citizen , because both men have the faculty of speaking pointblank to each other , have a mutual esteem , and appreciate the force of the truth .

      1116 ' T H E Lea P E R. [Satubday ^. ~ —...

      1116 ' T H E LEA P E R . [ Satubday ^ . ~ — ' ———¦¦ ¦ ' ' * ' ¦¦ "' ¦ ¦ ¦ — ^ . ^^^^^^^^ ^ — ¦ -

      Agricultural Statistics. Notwithstanding...

      AGRICULTURAL STATISTICS . Notwithstanding our self-grumbling we are really beginning to appl y the precept for the physician to cure himself . Cholera has at last done something for sanitary reform ; railway collisions have brought forth an official scheme for railway governance ; proverbial confusion in law haa induced an effort to set it in order ; and agriculture has at last consented to assist in seeking some information about itself and its produce . Lord Ashburton has written to teach the new philosophers of Hampshire , that in seeking statistics Grovcrnment seeks to impose no new tax ; and Mr . Philip Pusey has writton to Lord Ashburton to point out the expediency of rendering statistical returns uniform , year after year , in order that they may show the comparative increase of produce . It ia probable that at last agriculture will begin to understand broadly all that it can do for itself , by higher labour , better machinery , and drainage commensurate with the want of drainage . A quarterly contemporary sees in the rain which has unceasingly brimmed

      our streams a proof for agriculturists , experimentally , of tho impolicy of submitting in passive Bupineness to tin occasional deluge without providing outlets for tlio waters . Tho necessity indeed was known , and the dilliculticH to be overcome are not all of mi engineering kind . The difficulty lies in the " interests , " and it is they that perplex calculation . As the Jiritish Quarterly Mevieia says ;— " When wo como to the actual performance of tho work , wo meet a host ; of rights and interests conflicting upon tho banks of our fitrearn ; mills mentioned in . Donuwhy refuse to lose their water power ; navigation or o . anul companies wll not have their ' head' iii any way lowered ; irrigniont of mnulowH demand our npn-intorferonco with their drains and k carriers ;' ' . jy , . ; . towns obHtinately oppoHo our nlteration of their \ - -. 'ii SiJWE'fe *" *' ' %° " 1 wharfiiign ; and even a /' ¦ - /' " . " /^ P ^ dPsP 1011 ° ^ ^' ° 1 'uuIh we week to benefit ( , r- : v , - '' ' SS ^ . declaring their Hnti . sfaetiou with iho f $$ N $ K could have proved the want of draiu-H ; J r t « * fto '<^ l ^ ft * o < l tho difficulty better lhan Ire' - « - V r ^ m ; wJioro ( hoy demand it , ' they hnvo it , [ hey

      grumble at it , and decline to pay for it . Not long since , certain proprietors interested in landdrains instituted proceedings against the Board _ ot Works in the law courts of Dublin , and the Master of the Rolls severely animadverted upon the Board for the unconstitutional and arbitrary nature of their acts ; " an Irish Star Chamber , ' he called it . A Star Chamber , also popular opinion was very much inclined , to call this great instrument for the redemption of Irish lands . Lord Uosse had procured a committee of the House of Lords to expose the abuse ; and on the

      recommendation of ' -that . committee , which had an Irish difficulty in arriving at a conclusion , Commissioners -were appointed to investigate some of the districts marked by excess of expenditure and of dissatisfaction . The Commissioners discovered that estimates had been greatly exceeded ; one estimate , for example , of works which were to cost 186 , 9162 ., proved in fact to have cost 106 , 616 / . more ; and the proprietors who assented to the lower expenditure complained of being mulcted for the larger . The Commissioners could not get over the difficulty

      better than by suggesting that the imperial exchequer should bear the balance ; a short cut from Irish dissatisfaction . There are technical reasons why the Irish proprietors had some show of justice in their complaint ^ nevertheless , the species of absurdity in expecting exact estimates in cases where unforeseen difficulties beneath the soil , or in the fluctuations of the weather , may entail great excess of expense . The removal of Mr . Malony , the commissioner in charge of the

      drainage department from the Board of vv orks , implies some dissatisfaction in the administration ; yet it is impossible to treat Commissioners who have the conduct of great works of such kind as persons buying and selling an ascertained commodity , and bound by their " bargain , " like Antonio to Shylock . It was a complaint that the Act embodied arbitrary clauses ; but official departments must have power , and the question is , not whether such works can be reduced

      beforehand to an exact estimate of expenses , but whether it is on the whole beneficial to invoke the power of the Executive . Now it is not only obvious , but confessed , that individual proprietors cannot effect the grand drainage of their own estates . Physical geography does not know individual proprietors ; and streams will not flow or stop with any respect for the rights of property . If individual proprietors wish their lands to be drained they must combine , and render their association harmonious to the

      physical geography of the district . They want a machinery , therefore , which must be independent of their own individual caprices and changeful moods ; and unless county boards should supply such a machinery for a majority once voted , upon the principle of self-government , a still higher authority appoars no more than sufficient for the purpose . The Commissioners who exhibited these

      difficulties in Ireland , also brought forth proofs of the immense advantage which results from drainage on a great scale . In the Strokestown district the Board expended 36 , 000 £ . Beforo drainage the land was never cultivated , and most of it paid no rent . The works were partly executed in 184 . 8 , and tho lands Avere then , for tho first time , put xmder cultivation . Between that period and 1853 , the groan value of tho crops raised off this hitherto fallow and unwholesome waste , was 4 , 7 , 4071 . ; and the net profit , after paying all

      expenses , amounted to 29 , 2147 . ; nearly clearing off , in that short period , the whole cost of tho works . There have been valuable irnprovemojjtH in Lincolnshire , — -witness , ' < tho Fens , " ' whose name records tho improvements effected in past times . A fliiriilarkindofiniproveTncntliaH redeemed mucli land on the Danube , for tho profit of tho Bulgarians ; and tho question is , whether tho very complotoiiess and muUiplieity of ' rights enjoyed by the English agriculturifit ' will bar him from

      enjoying benefits achieved hy his forefathers in ruder limes , or by barbariariH in his own . We have long known that we want drainage—wo have long known that wo cannot gel ; out of our land all that wo might , Hutil wo drain ; but tho question is , whether wo , have yet arrived , at that amount of Holf-knowled ge which would result in tho clear conviction and toill U > go and got tho work done . If wo have , it will V > o nceoHwiry to ubo tho example of Ireland for imitation , where it shown us tho profit of work done ; and to iiho the eamo eiamplo for avoidance , where it shows

      the effects of a narrow or litigious spirit in im peding every machinery which we set at work

      In Re Hamilton : Lokd Malmesbury's ¦ M ....

      IN re HAMILTON : LOKD MALMESBURY ' S ¦ . DEFENCE . The case against Lord Malmesbury may be taken from his own account . He complains that Mr . Hamilton ' s story is so " loose and inexact" as to vitiate its truth , and then ho tells the story of himself : — " When I first heard from Sir William of the brutal outrage committed by tlie Neapolitan police upon Mr . Hamilton ' s scholars , and of the breach of treaties against Mr . Hamilton himself , my first and paramount duty was to oblige this Italian State officiall y to acknowledge that British subjects residing at Naples possessed an indefeasible right to visit and receive one another in their own houses , for all objects of social intercourse and of religious and secular education . There never could be a < Juestion that the Neapolitan Government had indisputable power over the acts and education of its own subjects , and that beyond a private expression of my opinion I could not interfere with them . I did , therefore , exact from the Neapolitan Government an official recognition of that right , and , more than this , I obtained from it , that a British school which had hitherto existed , as they stated , by connivance and forbearance , should be hereafter pub- " licly authorized and established under the protection of the British Mission . "

      This seems excellently done , but what are the ' ' fruits P" Lord Malmesbury himself pronounced the conduct of the Neapolitan policy " brutal ;" he asserts the right of a British subject to keep a British school ; he says that he secured that right . Being publicly recognised , was the right freely exercised?—was it maintained?—was the brutal conduct of the police checked ? On the contrary , the police interfered more brutally . than ever , and

      the right was forcibly suppresseS . Here , then , we gather , on the statement of the British Minister himself , that a right which had been exercised upon sufferance , and that he caused to be recognised , as if only for the purpose of suppressing it in fact , by a violence whicn he justly calls brutal . What is this but to drag the British nationin to the indignity in which Mr . Hamilton was involved ?

      Lord Malmesbury then enters into an examination of dates to show that he had only " heard " of Mr . Hamilton ' claim in August , the school having closed in July . " The whole affair was settled on the 16 th December , " and lie quitted office on the 28 th of that month ; it was , therefore , not eight but four months during which Lord Malmesburv had heard of ifc . But as Lord

      Malmesbury entered office in February , 1853 , we can only suppose that he did not " hear" of it sooner , because lie did not ask about it . He also says that Mr . Hamilton stated his annual profits at 200 L a year , " and lie now puts them at 700 /;" but Mr . Hamilton ' s claim is not on the score of pro / Its . He was forced to break up his school abruptly ; and , as any man in any commercial transaction will find , an abrupt closing of business leaves the current account deficient on the credit

      aide as compared with the debtor ' s . " This , ' says Lord Malmesbury , after tho paragraph wo have just quoted , "ia my reply to the statement ' that tho only fruit of my interference was fifty pounds given to Mr . Hamilton . ' " Now , Mr . Hamilton does not . state" that as the only fruit : ho Bays that Lord MahncBbury unwarrantably accepted 100 / . for an injury which is stated at 5 ( X )/ . Biit Lord Mahiieabury on some very " loose- and inexact * Rurvey of the case " considered a sum of 100 / . the due compensation for his loss . " It i . s evident ) however , that Lord Malmesbury consider * t-h «' official recognition of a right as the nolid il ' ulil \ . his intervention , a right recognised to bo violated . in tho tooth of the English nation tin well an <> i

      tho ' schoolmaster . We have noli ycfc beard the wholo of the ewe . "IbIuiII probably , " nay . s Lord . MabneHbury , » ' < the nrtxt meeting of ' Parliament , move for tlio production of the eoi ' mspondenco which Un > place between the Foreign Offiro and U » j > ^ 'l ~ polilan GovernTiienl , upon this ¦ . Mibj < ' <; l ; . how are we lo be n . HHurod that " Iho correspondence" will not < -onniHfc of " extract P" Or oven" , it bo entire in the hcvIch of official dowm" ' " *; lioivarawo to know wliiit nawHed in " Pl *! , u

      notion P which , as l » rin « o Oarini Hayn , -uHWiliy w-L \ w truth . Thore ih , uhIvmI , no Bwmrity ; ' alMioujrh I ' jovd Mu . lin « Hbwry ( lerlavefl the ( 'ollV ^) nation to have been an invention , wo Juivo '"^' ^ iruuiy oeenHiouH luid reason to obtwu'vo ih < ' n ! iK . ]( l ]> rivato < : orr < wi ) on < loiioowhicli Hoh \ mdcr n <«<» ; ' veil , boncath tho outer veil of that secret ciij »

  • Citation
    • Leader (1850-1860), Nov. 19, 1853, page 12, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_19111853/page/12/