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924 THE LEADER. [Saturday/
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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.
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St. George With The Drag- On. There Is A...
Emperor had at first claimed . Austria , with a wink of the eye , wishes England and France to fall in with that idea , hinting that Turkey must be content with the defence which lets in the aggressor , if he will come quietly . The policy of Austria is the policy of Mrs . Hardcastle— " take a ll I have , and spare my life . " St . George , who has . grown fat , and disinclined for disturbances , thinks th ^ t it may be possible to arrange the affair yet , and proposes to talk it over once more , slipping into the hands of Turkey a separate explanation . But here the peremptory will of the Czar breaks up all those nice and quiet arrangements .
The chancellor of the Czar has sent two circulars to the Courts of the Four Powers , which place the pretensions andinsolence of the Northern autocrat beyond any mistake . In one despatch , the Four Powers are told that their mediation was not asked or wanted ; that if they have not arranged a definitive submission for Turkey , they must take the consequences of their own ill-success , for the Czar will listen no more , and will proceed to action according to his own judgment . The other circular explains how he bad considered the Vienna Note to convey that recognition of his influence in Turkey which it was
the very object of the mediation to deny . There is more than the failure of the negociations in this declaration from Hussia—it implies , first , that Hussia never really entered into any consultation with the Four Powers , but looked for the satisfaction of her own will , whatever they might j udge ; that the Emperor regards the mere act of listening to the Four Powers as a great condescension ; that if they did not defer to him , lie is ready to defy them , one and all ; and that his arrogance proceeds so far as to prevent even the desire of concealing the contempt that he has for any that stand against him .
This last act of the arch , enemy appears really to have roused comfortable Sfc . George ; and official as well as popular organs admit that Russia has gone too far for longer forbearance . Turkey was in the right before ; but official organs endeavour to show that , however Turkey might be in the right abstractedly , it might be more expedient to make a compromise between that right and the grossest and most lawless injustice . Turkey has made no aggression , but only endured it ; yet St . George , who used to be the champion of innocence against wrong in the Turkish
dominions , has now discovered that the weakness of Turkey was a reason why the champion should desist from the duty of defending weakness against wrong ! If by any means St . George could only have compromised the affair—if he could suffer wrong to be committed without the offender or the victim saying out loud that it was a wrong—if he could only hush up the cries of injury , and the exulting shout of the injurer—if he could only persuade the too proud Emperor
to moderate his triumph , to put his insolence in diplomatic language , to inflict his kicks under the surcoat , St . George would have been content not to move . But as it is , Turkey calling out for help , liusaia declaring her intent to defy law , the great autocrat positively going so far as , in tho face of Europe and America , to give St . George ; i fillip on tho nose , the scandal has becorno too great for knighthood to endure , and St . George feels that ho must at last buckle on his sword .
Next week rIn tho meanwhile there would bo a chance for moro talk on tho subject , and St . Gcorgo may yet bo reprieved . Lord John Russell has boon repeating at Grecnock that it is the Baerecl duty of Englishmen to maintain tho weak against tho strong , to defend tho independence of nations , and to securo for peoples that freedom of which others would deprive them . But that duly " vv / is England's duty hint week , or the week before , when Ministers were doing their best to IimhIi up and compromise tho wrong of . Russia ,. She / Held
has had its mooting , and lias spoken out strongly in favour of vindicating tho honour of England by executing tho duty which Lord . John . Russell avows ; but the commercial English mind maliciously- remembers that She / Held deals in fiword-blmles . Other ( owns also are prepared to speak . Birmingham has been thinking of it—Marylobono has been cogitating—Newcastle has been moving in its sleep—Manchester has eonis ofr .
milted ^ lHiuayor ; Stafford mindful MUrqu-Jmrt : " ¦ Gnl > ' $ t , ' (¦ fccjdr . go , who iw very heavy after « ft * pj » ex \ groftiiH ,, aijid :.. yttwnH , and lets the weeks ^ J $ .. » yVimtii » tf tho * mission thnl ; summons him jgvcv moro to Cnnpattocm . w ¦' •'¦ . ¦ ¦ ¦¦ . •¦ i !^ M >; ^ w ^ 7 P 'M iis'K ^ 5
St. George With The Drag- On. There Is A...
LITTLE RAVENS WANTED FOR FRANCE AND ENGLAND . Feance is making progress towards free-trade . The example of England has not been without its force , and necessity supplies the immediate impulse . There is a chance that the people will want bread ; and , a hungry people being an angry people , his Majesty Napoleon III . feels a peculiar solicitude to prevent the people from becoming hungry . He has , therefore , not only made an arrangement to pay their bakers' bills for them , which is an extremely imperfect way of managing theaffair—but has thrown open the ports to foreign corn . The French people are in want of iron for railways ; they have iron somewhere in France ,
and iron also in Belgium introduced under special treaties ; but it can be supplied from England with great facility and cheapness ; and the truth has at last dawned upon the French mind , that French resources would be less wasted if English iron were used . Iron therefore is admitted . Another improvement has been , to throw open the ports to live stock and to salt meat provisions ; and there is really a possibility that that which has been declared to be the principal element of the victory of Waterloo may be inserted into the French constitution , in the shape of John Bull beef . v .-
A good old Tory of the Protectionist times might have deprecated this supply of stamina to our " natural enemies , " and might have drawn grave arguments from the proposal to feed the forces arrayed against Wellington up to the standard of Wellington's own men . But in our day , we are more accustomed * to regard the French as arrayed , not against us , but in concert with us , to promote a trade of which they produce one part and we another .
This idea also has expanded to completeness in the minds of the councils general , in various parts of France , and particularly in the wine-growing districts ; where their hearts have thoroughly opened to the conviction that English iron ought to be admitted into France , through tlie blessed perception that it would be delightful if French wine were admitted into England . As Dido felt the miseries of iEneas in her own sufferings , so the French wine-producer feels the wrongs of the English iron-master through his own exclusions .
It is true that these arrangements in France , perhaps these sentiments , are in great part onl y provisional ; but it is remarked , that in France it is the provisional only Avhich endures . And it is possible that if the caprices of Government do not obstruct , these genuine experiences of the French people , having been expressed to theml b survive the f
seves y themselves , may stage o theoretical controversy , and be realized in permanent action . If so , the French will find introduced amongst themselves more certain supplies of bread to make contented citizens ; English iron to make railways ; English beef to feed artisans as well as soldiers to the English standard ; English prices for wines .
And we ourselves shall not lose by the # ain of the French . On the contrary , there is nothing we can supply to them for which they will not return vis more ; for the principle of free exchango is , that each party gains by tho transaction , or it will not be effected . There is a chance , therefore , that besides Australia and other distant augmentations of the field of our commerce , we may acquire a constant customer in our nearest neighbour ; and that tho prosperity , over which we have been rejoicing for the last year or two , will ho again
extended ; all classes of the country to benefit by it . Wo make it no exception , although it is a bold assertion , to say that the elans which produces tho beef and the corn , and which so far feeds all other producing classes in tho country , will have its own largest share of our increased prosperity . It lias not been so yet . It is true thai ; the impulse of tho improved wages has reached even the agricultural labourer , and
that in Suffolk as well as Cornwall wages have advanced from (> . v . or 7 . s \ , to i ) s ,, lO . s-., ll . v ., or even 12 , s \ But in England , with increased prices Hot by the scale of prosperity , 12 , s " . a-woek is utill a small income for » , man and his family . Few of those who write or talk so glibly about ; the improved condition of the labourer , would bo content to live upon V & s . u-week ; would not indeed turn pale at the thought of such a futo . While then , wo aro talking about tho possibility that the French peasant may bo better fed ,
we have still reason to doubt whether the English peasant is yet fed up to his payingpoint . Weinea whether as a serviceable animal it would not n the employer of the English labourer to feed jhim better . Another proof of his excessively low condition is the fact , that brass buttons ^ nd a bounty for keeping his family out of the work house still form an '" object" for the English labourer . We have that fact on the highest authority . The great philosopher of the quondam Country party presided ^ ver the most recent
celebration ot agncultural unity , and distributed to meritorious peasants prizes consisting of sums of 20 s . or 50 s ., and of green coats with brass buttons . The peasant is often tol d at these meetings that he is the true creator of wealth but it seems that a very little sample of his creal tion is sufficient to satisfy himself . Out of all the universe of pounds , shillings , and pence , one pound sterling , or two , which the mere
administrator on the Stock Exchange would think it mean to expend upon a dinner , becomes a life impulse for the creator . These peasants , it is said , are the bone and sinew of the country , and yet it seems they are held so cheap , that , while we pay 61 . bounty for a militia-man , we pay as bounty to the parent in the labour market 5 * . per head for a child . Indeed , the money bounty is all paid for the children , so that we must take the price of the peasant to be per child , 5 s . ; per adult , a green coat with brass buttons .
How comes it , then , that the peasant is con . tent with his fate P How is it that he so resembles a horse which a child may drive , though its strength would kill the strongest man ? It is because the English labourer is so far removed from the civilization of which we boast , that , like the French peasant in Arthur Young ' s time , he is ignorant not only of what all the rest of the world knows , but even of the very means of acquiring other knowledge . The peasant does not Jtnow life own strength—does not know what he might have , and therefore is it that he is so readily persuaded to be content with 11 * . or 12 s . as the ideal maximum of income for the
" true Englishman . " Those who rejoice in " the productive power of the country" might reflect that the man who is content with 11 s . or 12 s . for himself , his wife , and family to live upon , must be a being of limited ideas , ignorant and stupid . In that cramped and benighted condition he must be , in fact , a very unskilled and bungling machine . It would not pay a cotton manufacturer to keep his weavers down to the point of mental and physical imbecility which is the standard of the true Englishman under the patronage of the Country party . Recent experiments in agriculture have shown that improvement of ploughs , digging-machines , and
reapingmachines , returns a larger profit where a larger outlay procures a better implement ; and some of the most recent experiments also justify tho belief that if the principal machine of all—the working hand-labourer—were improved in the same manner , and somewhat by the same means , profit would bo proportionately increased .
During the lato prosperity , a part of our difficulty has arisen from tho fact that the producing power was scarcely equal to the strength put upon it . The sale , for oxample , both of iron and coals , has at times been restricted by « io difficulty of producing either ; and if wo aro to extend our fields of commerce , thero " n ° d < J , I that our producing power will bo still jurt icr strained—in other words , will prove unequal to iuo ot cot
opportunities it encounters . In the history - mcrce , however , it has always been Joujhi , wi when an opportunity has been opened ana n seized upon by those who stood nearest to * W others have come forward to ta-lto it ; and buc » unquestionably the ease in tho present nisu » If the sagacity of our ministers , or tho « ci : CB ! r i II Mie sagneu . y oi our miiiinuun , w ., « . ~ -- fvqji lor us
of foreign governments , ^ should open " - fields of commerce , in Franco or oJflOWJH- j which wo cannot iffl , our statesmen aro v working to introduce ; say , American t radei" . therefore becomes a question , practicft urgent for those who have tho in tore ^ 01 ' t country at heart , to say nothing of tho « < of tho " agricultural labourer , wh ether uy ' - . ^ place the labourer in a state of K ! f aI , d onoy , awakening his mind by cducai on ,
strengthening Ins limbs by hotter K >( m r ( are convinced that it will piy ns wo J ^ and instruct the Eng lishman up to * l 0 mereial standard , as it will to boB «*>« r iho process on tho Frenchman .
924 The Leader. [Saturday/
924 THE LEADER . [ Saturday /
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Sept. 24, 1853, page 12, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_24091853/page/12/
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