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Leader (1850-1860), 26th May 1855, Edition 2 of 2, Page 14

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      The State Of Feeling In The Country. If ...

      other grounds . Many would strain a point to support the Borough Members . Some are perplexed between a Government whose language seems to be equivocal , Tories who are no better , and Peace men , - who are supposed to say-frankly what Government means covertly . Hence it is difficult to extract a positive expression of feeling from Manchester at- this moment . There would

      be one mode of . doing it : let the Borough Members ^ call a meeting to affirm a resolution agairist the war , and in favour of accepting the terms of Russia , and the motion would be scouted by an overwhelming majority . The Manchester party dare not call a public meeting in their own metropolis . Let us see the sentiments of the press . In Manchester there are four newspapers : the Guardian , a Ministerialist ; the Courier , a Tory ; the Advertiser , which it would be difficult to classify ; and the ^ Examiner , over which Mr . Bbight is popularly supposed to exercise an influence . The Examiner is the

      only paper * opposed to the war . What is the case in Leeds ? The statistics of the journals perfectly * confirm our knowledge of the place . Here there are three journals : the Mercury , widely extended and influential , is strongly opposed to the course taken by the Peace party ; the . Times , with a large circulation , and the Intelligencer , the Tory journal , are exactly on the same side . JN " , in the 2 Forth of England the newspapers are at once the

      dependents and the dictators of public opinion . With very exceptional cases , they cannot hope to maintain their existence , unless in the main they reflect the opinions of their readers . Having established themselves in repute for doing so , they become recognised as the . indicators of local opinion , and readily preserve the function of pointing out the direction that local opinion is taking , even of corroborating that direction .

      Let us look to a totally different quartersay Lincoln , the centre of an agricultural country . Here our letters give us exactly the same sentiments ; the local press reflects the same general opinion , and from the eccentric Colonel Sibxhoep to the most modest Bhopkeeper , there is the same English feeling , that the war ought to be prosecuted as Englishmen would wage it , with a doubt , whether Government is equal to the business .

      If Government is misunderstood by the body of the people , the body of the people is grievously misunderstood by Government ; but it is the severance of class which keeps up this ignorance , and it is kept up by the manners and customs of the natives . In this country men stick to their own circles . Those of independent means run an established round between the Houses of

      Parliament , certain drawing-rooms , and certain boxes at the Opera , and certain routes and fashionable towns on the Continent . They see the same faces , and tell each other the same opinions , and think they " know England ; " when they only know the inhabitants of the Court Guide . The defect is common to every class , and arises from the same vicious foible—shyness . Even statesmen , who " go abroad amongst the people , " meet thorn only in committee-rooms , or in public meetings ; look at them—or " inspect" them , as

      the royal phrase runs—under some formal aspect , and return as wise as they camo . It is under cover of this ignorance that revolutions are bred , which burst forth before the governing , olass know that they are rising . The only chance that the governing class will take the proper steps to prevent that revolution from rising in disgust at the feebleness of our Government , would lie in their overeoming this shyness and this ignorance . " Wo I axte ; half inclined to think- that , adversity < has I made thomiboinn , their lesson *

      The State Of Feeling In The Country. If ...

      THE DUTY OF THE OPPOSITION IN FRANCE . Thebe are symptoms of an inevitable catastrophe which render the duty of the Opposition , in France an urgent question . Omens gather round the Empire . Prescient rumours fill the air of French society . DnouYN de Lhtjts , so often paraded as the one respectable man , has departed : the Bili , atj : lts seem to be growing uneasy Nothing succeeds with a man whose sole justification is success . The peace which was to

      be synonymous with the Empire has been sacrificed , and Sebastopol is not taken . The Temple of Concord is opened in the midst of disastrous war : it is opened with pomp and expectation , and , so far , is a total failure . The grand equivocation of repression and socialism which succeeded as a cry breaks down when erected into a . principle of government , and leaves nothing but dissatisfaction and contempt . The men of the coup d ' etat—St . Abnattd , De Locemei , Botjat , EspijStasse , Canrobebt—are falling , stricken by death or by disgrace . It needs not the hand of another Pianobi to render it necessary to provide for

      the future . Had Louis ISTapoieon been an honest man , he might have reconciled order with liberty , and won pure honours by founding on an enduring basis the peace and happiness of France . The situation was grave indeed , but without imminent peril . The infamous expedition to Borne , unwisely resented by a call to arms among a party who did not know the strength of their moral position , led to an untoward outknownwould

      break . Yet 1852 , it is now , have passed without extraordinary excitement . The men of all parties who . owned morality would have accepted a strong republican government . The fears which served as an excuse for the usurpation were excited by the man who was to profit by them ; while , at the same time , the army was debauched in the same interest . Truly great ambition would have saved the country ; but truly great ambition does not find its home in the breast of a Louis Napoleon , or its

      minister in a Morny or a Fouxd . The usurpation , so applauded by all who hate liberty and duty , has aggravated in a fearful ratio the dangers of the crisis which it cannot long postpone . All the elements of disorder and division which threatened a constitutional government , but which under a constitutional government would have found vent in constitutional ways , will reappear at the break-up of the ice , exasperated by suppression and proscription , intensified by

      secret agitation , and rendered more unreasonable by the want of free discussion . Liberty , when revived , will inherit accumulated difficulties and perils . There will be a fearful outbusrt of public and private vengeance against the fallen tyrants : proscription , exile , bereavement , insults suffered at the hands of triumphant mountebanks , turn tho blood of the sufferers to flame . The clergy ,

      steeped in perfidy and servility , and whoso treasonable designs against tho principles of Hocial justice established in 1789 arc no longer even masked , have also a terrible score to pay . Tho public debt is increasing at a rate which tends to bankruptcy . The army is regarded as a horde of praetorians , divorced from the sympathies and interests of tho nation . AH these difficulties must bo

      grappled with , tho magistracy reconstructed ; and the suffrage purified , under tho fire of a press rendered more violent by suppression and unused . to the responsibilities of freedom . Tho situation will be formidable ; but . it must one day bo mot . Ignoble deupotiem cannot endure in France , unlose tho . soul of France becomes * utterly- lost to . honour .: and

      as yet those who are the soul of France have not abandoned honour , faith in moralit y , or the hope of freedom . Heroism and : selfdevotion are needed to surmount the peril ; but to have surmounted it will , be the noblest of moral victories and the surest pledge of tranquillity for the future . The preparation for the struggle . must . begin now . It cannot be carried on publicly , but it must be carried on privately , in each circle , in each family , in each heart y not by intriguing in salons , but by learning and preaching political duty . Those terrible chiinferas which threaten the material interests

      of the country , and drive the proprietor and merchant to clasp the knees of military despotism for protection , must be silently combated . The personal ambition which has been the bane of freedom everywhere , and above all in France , must be subdued in the breasts which it has hitherto driven to mutual destruction and the common ruin . The word must be passed through society , that the restoration of liberty , though it may bring with it some high acts of justice , is not to be a reign of violence and blood .

      The enemies of French liberty without are usurpation and Jesuitism . Its enernies within are Socialism , Terrorism , and intrigue —Socialism , innocent when it was an aspiration , a poem , and a dream , but as an element of political collision , as a violent " attempt abruptly to accelerate the secular evolution of society , " * justly hateful , notto ' wealth only , but to all who live by the work of their own hands—Terrorism , which is nothing but the mad lust of revolutionary dictatorship and demagogical tyranny—intrigue , which

      rendered the political chiefs of France contemptible in the eyes of the people , and reconciled material interests to any executive which was not to be the sport of parliamentary factions . Evidently it is by a general effort of morality and self-devotion that these perils must be overcome . One other passion there is as fatal to the liberty-of France as to the tranquillity of her neighbours—the appetite for military glory to be sated by trampling on the honour and happiness of other nations . But of this we believe Frenchmen are almost

      cured . Scourged by Napoleonism , they no longer worship the idol of the Place Vend 6 me . We have been led to speak on this subject not only by the apparent imminence of a crisis , "but by the want of preparation of the right kind . We hear of Legitimist , Orleanist , Fusionist combinations , which , when the time comos , will only double and treble the confusion . "We hear of plans and projects among the proscribed , which , in the hour of action , must inevitably thwart and wreck each other . Wo do not hear of that which alone is needed—a

      general determination to work out the salvation of France , and to bury all personal differences and self-interests in tho performance of a great national duty . Wo speak with the deepest sympathy for those who have lost all in tho cause of liberty and honour . And wo speak , with anxiety indeed , but by no moans without hope . Something at least has boon learned from adversity . May the lesson prove fruitful , and may Franco , for her own sake and that of all nations , pass at last in salcty tho stormy gulf which separates tho roign ol tradition from that of truth , tho roign ot dynasties and aristocracies from that ol capacity and juatice .

      The State Of Feeling In The Country. If ...

      * Mr . 11 Q * Ward , " Letters on Social Kcfonn . " 1840 .

      What Are The Tories? Wu Have Rocoivod A ...

      WHAT ARE THE TORIES ? Wu have rocoivod a lottor from a correspondent , who ia angry with us for warning . Liberals against taking up with the lories , and' thinkst that in so doing , wo doparc

      4m Oqhe Leader. [Saturday,

      4 m OQHE LEADER . [ Saturday ,

  • Citation
    • Leader (1850-1860), May 26, 1855, page 14, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_26051855/page/14/