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    QSO THE LEAJ)J1^ ffio. 492. Aug. 27, 185...

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    MM. VICTOR HUGO AND LOUIS BLANC ON THE A...

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    " JUSTICE TO ITALY," Under this head Mr....

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    Germany. Auqust 24th, 1859.—The Active M...

    central power tinder the leadership of Prussia . We dp not proclaim this adhesion as if there existed in Germany opposite tendencies , to combatt , but simply to let all who share our sentiments know that we are ready to go hand in hand with them . We make this declaration fully conscious that unless we co-operate to bring about the union of all the States of our common country we shall have to endure the serious consequence to which a longer continuance in our present condition will most assuredly lead . " This meeting at Gotha was intended to be a grand demonstration andthe signal for a universal agitation , but judging by present appearances it has proved to be only the last act of a play , and the spectators and actors are all off home and to bed .

    Btrong and healthy to labour in those colonies which require a supply of hands . It is to be hoped that no persons condemned for political offences will be mixed up accidentally and sent off with common gapl bird 3 . Should this report be founded on fact it may prove not only a cheap and expeditious mode of getting rid of useless vagabonds and disagreeable persons generally in Prussia and even all Germany , but also prove a comfort to those countries—England for instance—which lie near and have no system of passpprts . The Americans have long _ ago adopted precautions against the economical views of certain Governments in Germany as regards

    their criminals . : A slight reduction has taken place in the postage between England and the Hanse towns Hamburg and Bremen . Letters pay now 5 £ d . instead of 8 d ., if sent by steamer and prepaid . Newspapers are , however , still charged by weight , which , as regards the English , owing to their size and the stoutness of the paper , is equal to an exclusion from circulation in Germany . Letters from this country to the United States are charged no more than 5 d ., while newspapers are charged only Id . each , no matter what the sise . Why such a difference should exist

    it is hard to understand . It would appear as if the English post-office authorities entered into postal treaties without considering the relative circumstances of the different nations . We can send a German newspaper to England for Id . * or at most 2 d ., whereas we cannot receive an English paper here Tinder 3 d ., or at the very least 2 ^ d . For ^ Times or London News the postage amounts from 3 d . to 5 d ., which , considering the relative value of money , is equal to twice the amount in England * At any rate it is absurd that the postage from here to England should be as . high a " s to America .

    A statement , which lean hardly believe true , is making the round of the German papers to the effect that the English Government is engaging hundreds of carpenters , masons , and locksmiths from Berlin and . its environs , upon very advantageous terms , to erect edifices for Government account in the Ionian Islands . A special contract , it is said , has been concluded with-each . The engagement is for eighteen months , at the expiration of which each will be free , to return at the expense

    of Government . Should this be true it may not be unworthy of notice by the English press , for several reasons , which I may advance on a future occasion . P . S . The cholera is raging with such violence in Mecklenburg that the Government has made a semi-official appeal to the landowners not to abandon their estates in cowardly fear ,, but to do their duty to their unfortunate tenants , and assist the most afflicted districts in getting in the . crops which are rotting in the fields for want of labourers .

    Changes , but not to the extent anticipated , have occurred in Austria . Some persons have been shifted in the Ministry , and hopes are held out of certain reforms in consequence . The Vienna Gazette officially announces that Count Recberg retains his place as Minister for Forei gn Affairs , and becomes Minister President ; Baron Hubner , Police ; Mr : Von Goluchowski , Minister of the Interior ; Freiherr Von Kemper is pensioned off , and Von Bach is appointed Ambassador to Rome . The Ministership of Trade is abolished , and the labours distributed among the the Interior , Foreign , and Finance offices . An article in the hon-official part of the Gazette pretends to confirm the general and ardent

    expectations of the people , and is happy to inform them that the subjects which were under consideration at the Special Conferences ( mentioned in my last ) were - —The establishment of a board of control for the Finances ; the free exercise of the Protestant religion ; the regulation of the position of the Jews ; the carrying out of the Communal laws ; and parliamentary representation at a later period in the crown domains . Timid hesitation , says the Gazette . as well as unreflecting haste , are equally to be avoided . It would occupy too much space were I to attempt to give even the briefest sketch of these subjects . Indeed it would be useless , for it is much sound , signifying nothings The people themselves

    never trouble themselves about these sham questions , which are only putforth from time to time to make them believe that the Government is busy about some vast improvement . All pother about Communal laws may be calmed by quietly granting every one liberty to gain his bread the best way he honestly can , and allowing free ingress and egress from the country . Protestants and Jews merely require to be left alone . It is rather comical to hear that the Government is about to establish a control over the finances now that they have hardly any existence . The last promised reform is of all the most ridiculously prospective— " Parliamentary representation for the crown domains at an indefinitely has

    later ^ period been under consideration . " In this , at least , there wilt be no excessive haste . * The King of Prussia is sinking from one stage of imbecility to another , and his death is daily expected . The late attack haying passed off , no further bulletins will be issued for the present , and the members of the royal family are released from their attendance . The Prince Regent has departed for Ostend . It is to be hoped that the present style of address , when speaking to or writing of the sovereign and the Princes in Prussia , will soon be abolished , No one possessed of a grain of common sense could do otherwise than senile on reading the reDorts of the . Kiria ' s illness . One would have

    supposed that some Almighty being was lying sick at Potsdam , instead of the . indifferent chief magistrate of a third-rate power . Such terms of address as " Allergnadigste , Durchlauchtiffste , Konig gund Herr , " almost approach , in sound , at least , to blasphemy . But that it would seem like a mockery over the deplorable state of the unfortunate monarch , I would give you the last official report as a literary curiosity of the nineteenth century . Lord John Russell is said to have addressed a dispatch to Lord Bloomfield , soon after the treaty of Villa Franca , expressing a desire to establish a complete accordance between the cabinets of Berlin and London in all European questions , The Elberfeld Gazette states that the friendly relations between

    Russia and Prussia , are now closer than ever , and that Prussia , far from being isolated , is more powerful than before for good , and ' sees in her alliance with England , in particular , a strong guarantee tor the maintenance of peace . It is reported by some journals * that Prussia has entered into nn arrangement with the Dutch Government , according to which tho latter has undertaken to set apart a portion of territory in one at the other of the Dutch colonies as a penal settlement for all Prussian criminals who . have been condemned by ; the tribunals to ton years' Imprisonment or more , and who are sufficiently robust to endure the fatigues of a long voyage . Th . is , in plain l » nguage , I presume , means that ) Prussia has either iBoldL or made a present of all her criminals to Holiand , who it billing to receive such as are sufficiently

    Qso The Leaj)J1^ Ffio. 492. Aug. 27, 185...

    QSO THE LEAJ ) J 1 ^ ffio . 492 . Aug . 27 , 1859

    Mm. Victor Hugo And Louis Blanc On The A...

    MM . VICTOR HUGO AND LOUIS BLANC ON THE AMNESTY . The following additional declarations have been published this week . M . Victor Hugo , writing from Guernsey , says : — "No one will expect that , so far as I am personally concerned , I should give a moment ' s attention to the thing called an amnesty . While the state of France remains what it is , my duty will be to protest against it absolutely , inflexibly , eternally . Faithful to the engagement I have made with my conscience , I shall share to the last the exile of liberty . ' When liberty returns , I will return . " M . Louis Blanc expresses his opinion as follows :

    availing one s self of it , more especially if it be for the purpose of fulfilling domestic duties not" lessimperious and sacred than those arising from political convictions . No man , therefore , conscientiously influenced by such contingencies , is obnoxious or to . blame for seizing the opportunity , though reluctant to receive the boon . " On the other hand , there are those who , without being in the slightest degree prompted by the silly desire of setting up as martyrs , feel bound to subordinate all personal considerations to what they

    coiirceive to be a public duty consequent upon their position . If these persons have strong and obvious motives for believing that their return , besides being unsafe , would be of no avail either to their cause or to their country , they are , it seems to me , perfectly entitled to remain where they can speak put their mind , andienjoy the ennobling protection of the law . To serve France in France is for us now plainly impossible . To serve her abroad is the only chance we have left , at least so long as the policy of the empire remains unchanged .

    . " I have already acknowledged , which lam sorry to say was wilfully ignored by some of my critics , that Louis Bonaparte could hardly have done for us in the present conjuncture more than he has . But the amnesty is not the payment of the debt he owes to France , and in this payment lies the only means of imparting to the amnesty the character of a sincere and truly national act . Let the most odious practice be abolished ¦ ¦ ' . winch , confiscates personal liberty on mere suspicion , and is , in fact ,: worse than the famous loi des suspects , enacted in the darkest days of the French revolution . Let the principle be laid down that no person henceforth shall be dealt with as a criminal who has not been previously convicted by a jury of his country . Let the press be ungagged by the withdrawal of the crushing system of warnings , which is meant to annul the jury , and

    to make the whole of a man ' s property responsible for a single word . Let a fairly elected representative body speak openly before the , country , and no check be put on the publicity of their deliberations ; let , in fine , all those rights be restored to France which constitute civil and political liberty—then the amnesty will be a clear , appreciable measure .. Till this be done it remains open to the suspicion of insincerity , and may be taken as an indication of weakness rather than of strength . Whenever all this shall be done , then—and I urge the point , in order to prevent future misapprehension—it may become not only the . desire but the duty of those now compelled to be in a state of self imposed exile to return to their country , not indeed to force their particular views upon an unwilling majority , but to have them tested by peaceful discussion , and either received or rejected on their own merits . "

    — " I have received communications from some of my countrymen who , finding themselves in a most painful condition , and being anxiously summoned home by their families , desire to know , in order to remoye all doubts from their minds , whether , according to my views , persons situated as they are would do better not to take advantage of the amnesty . I need not point out to ' you the importance of the matter , both to tho persons alluded to and others , who ' may bo similarly circumstanced ; and this makes me hope that my answer will be published in your columns . " That the amnesty should bo welcomed by hearty and unqualified satisfaction , as far as it extends to the unfortunate men who are to be rescued from

    their places of deportation or from their dungepns , that is—from a living death—is a matter of course . Who could think without emotion of so many mothers , wives , and children , whose hearts overflowed with joy at the unexpected news ? But tho amnesty may also be fairly hailed as a blessing by many among tho exiles , whom thoir forlorn position in a foreign country , or family ties of a specially urgent character , justify in returning to their native land : for tho solution of the problem is not one which depends upon the requirements of party compact , but rests on individual responsibility . Persons placed in different circumstances can hardly be expected to view a question of this kind in exactly the same light . Now , the Amnesty being unconditional , no sort of stain whatever attaches to the act of

    " Justice To Italy," Under This Head Mr....

    " JUSTICE TO ITALY , " Under this head Mr . Walter Savage Landor haa written an eloquent letter to a contemporary . He sayH : — «• it is now evident to the most ignorant of the English people , and the most incredulous and opiniative of the English Parliament , that the Italian nation is worthy of free institutions , and resolute to maintain them . No election in our smallest borough was ever conducted with more temperance and propriety than the Florentine revolution in last April . Modena , Parma , Siena , Pisa , Leghorn , and every other municipality , were equally with Florence , firm , tranquil , prompt , and courageous . The Legations rose also in perfect unanimity from under the heavy

    seat imposed on them by the stranger , and supported by a fat flounced priesthood . A shameful peace delivered up Venice , long half dead , to be strangled and dismembered by the Barbarian , who had despoiled and mutilated her . It now is manifest that a League of Kings is opposed to a League of Nations , and determined to . throw every impediment ? tp the progress , of truth and freedom . They advance under the pretext of order in opposition to republicanism . And truly no greater curse can befall mankind than the strides of that hellish apparition . But it was no apparition that guiaea the Roman legions . It was no apparition that guided Cincinnatus from the furrow to the Gnpitctf * her

    Was Holland turbulent when she established form of government ? Was England turbulent when she called for her King the Statbplder of a republic ? Are tho Italians , like the French , incapablo of sellrule ? Must they crouch for ever under masters and strangers ? Venice was a republic ; yet was there ever another government in all Europe wmou flourished in order and plenty a thousand yeare r Florence was a republic , and sometimes so turoulent as to exhaust her energies , never dangerous 10 surrounding princes . This little city , the rival oi Athens , has produced more men illustrious in tne Arts and Sciences , more man pf exalted goP ' » than all tho rest of the Continent in ninoteon centuries . " _ , Mr . Landor demands that ; tho affairs of Italy should be left to Italian * to manage , and poiuts out

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), Aug. 27, 1859, page 8, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_27081859/page/8/