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    1044 THE LEADER- [Saturday ,

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    THE NEW TURKISH LOAN. The announcement, ...

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    Turnpike Jobs And County Magistrates. So...

    and unremunerated , dignity of Justice of the Peace . In . the former capacity we suppose h e was treasurer to this extravagant and anarchical trust , and called the meeting to get up the new gate , the banker and the official taking the responsibility of that irregular step , in order to gain his object by a coup d ' etat . Coups d ' etat have been very fashionable of late , but they require a larger field , plenty of accomplices , and a silent press for their accomplishment . It ' -is" satisfactory to learn that this iniquitous job has been signally defeated , and in a manner not only to read a severe lesson to the perpetrators , but to compel a thorough and searching exposure of the entire system . Had it not teenhoweverfor the spirited letters of " Amiiucu cii ¦¦¦ " ¦

    , , uccii , However , xur tut ? » jjii . . j . >> oxo w " cus , " not only would no financial committee have been appointed to inquire into the alleged abuses , but in all probabUity this new toll would have been levied ! If the public spirit shown by " Amicus" in this matter were more common , then local self-government would be realized in its most effective application , and the imperial Parliament would be relieved of half the private bills which are too often mere machines for putting localities under contribution to rival attornies , adepts in fighting over , and then dividing the spoils of the deluded rate-payers , who goodnaturedly believe that one of the said attorneys is the sworn-foe'of the other , and the

    representative of public virtue . But there is a further moral to be derived from this Turnpike story . In France , where the metropolis is paramount , and where the passion for administrative unity and centralization leaves tlie 86 departments in helpless nullity , the crying evil is , or has been * that for the simple repair of a road recourse must be had , through interminable ' hierarchies' of functionaries , to the supreme bureau of the Minister of the Interior / at Paris .

    la England , where we are accustomed to boast of our decentralization and of our local self-government , and where , indeed , the provinces . are literally left to themselves , with what results we Icnovv , ; we have abuses , and jobs , and difficulties of another , but scarcely inferior degree of absurdity , peculiar perhaps to our domestic institutions . We have the great unpaid magistracy , of whose efficiency and public service we indulged our readers with a specimen only last week . The sole qualification , very often at least , which these disinterested dignitaries can be supposed to possess , is a keen nose for poachers , and

    a religious sense of the rights of property . But as game preserving is going out of fashion , their activity , as gardc-champetres , \& in danger of lapsing into a sinecure . Still , there is something to be said in defence of the theory that those who possess the land , with all its rights , duties , and responsibilities , and who live among their " people , " should occupy the local judgment seat , for the dispensation of petty justice , and the trying of small offences . It is an initiation into public life , a dress of authority for the magnates of the county , and * in short , in the days of Protection , when there was no need of improved farming , it gave landlords something to do , and lent them a semblance of usefulness .

    TJioro arc instances , no doubt , in which justice is administered by the country gentlemen with a high sense of honour and duty , and with real public advantage ; whoro the fact of their being unpaid adds dignity to the bench . But we fear those instances are comparatively few . It is the inevitable result of institutions surviving their conditions of existence . Feudalism has lost its raison d' fitrc—its limbs are paralyzed , and what remains in one-sided and anomalous .

    "here was a time , of course , when tho county magistrates exercised an effective jurisdiction , and when tho lordship of tho land implied a recogniBod authority and a mutual service . But nil this is mere fossilism now-a-days , in this industrial and " popular" epoch . The landlords , instead of protecting , lmvo been clamouring to bo protected ; a fatal ' discouragement and inaction . lias mussed them ; and in too many counties we

    inul that , whether from indolence , or absence , or ruin , or neglect , they do not exorcise- their magisterial duties , but delegate them to a set of nouvcaux riches and upstart nobodies , whom , tho lord lieutenants are compelled to make magistrates , simply because tho country gentlemen are absent , or Idle , or unwilliiig to act . These novi homines usurp thoplacofl of tho old families , and , puffed into ft sudden find local importance , without even , the excuse of a large acroago for

    their ludicrous incapacity , take to studying Blackstone and Burn ' s Justice at forty , and perpetuate the inefficiency without the dignity and the bon 7 iomie of the " great unpaid . " And from their relations with petty attorneys in the county towns , these gentry are to be found at the bottom of half the jobs which long experience in the tricks of trade invested with irresponsibility may suggest . To this mongrel condition has our county magistracy fallen , entirely through the indolence and want of public spirit of the

    owners of the land . And let us add , that tlese acreless lourgeois magistrates are generally as narrow and retrograde in their politics as the oldest and most orthodox Protectionist . They are often the most intolerant and offensive enemies to popular advancement ; and at the elections none put on the screw so haughtily as they . The influence exercised in elections by the old families is usually a legitimate hereditary influence of affection and respect ; but exercised by Squires of yesterday , it is the arrogance of parvenus .

    It is clear that some remedy must be found for this state of things in the counties . Local legislation , and the administration of justice , must be purged and reorganized . The " ¦ landed" country gentlemen are found wanting ; they have renounced the exercise of their rightful duties , and are pushed from their stools by pettifoggers . The remedy cannot lie in the direction of the past ; it must be , like all remedies , in the sense of present tendencies . County legislation must be democratized . A bill is already before the Commons , and under the Home Secretary ' s approval ,

    which may be expected to give to public spirit in the counties a fresh and salutary impetus , and to open a broad channel for local self-government . The whole hody of rate-payers will have an effective control over county legislative and administrative concerns , We believe this princip le may be even extended ; but in the meantime the County Rates Bill will do much to correct the more flagrant abuses of the present chaos of stagnation and intrigue . It is probable that tliis

    bill , proceeding from so suspected a quarter as Manchester , may encounter a fierce opposition from the country party . With an extended suffrage there will of course be increased virulence among the jobbers and upstarts ; but it will always be found that landlords who live at home , and do their duty to the land , and to those wlio live on , and by , the land , will exercise an influence proportionate to their legitimate claims upon tlie respect and affection of their neighbourhood .

    We have but one more moral wherewith to adorn the tale of a Turnpike , which we have taken for our text . " Amicus , " by a pen bristling with facts and figures , has done the work of " Rebecca , " peacefully , legally , decisively , without riot or disturbance . But we would venture to suggest to him , as to a man of public spirit and discretion , whether it would not bo at once more simple and more effective , instead of from time to time sending out skirmishers to

    repel local johs and partial wrongs , to organize a vigorous and determined agitation , not limited to particular localities , against the " Turnpike Acts Continuance" Bill , which year by year slips unnoticed through tho Commons , and perpetuates tho evil by royal assent ? Wo make bold to say , that such an agitation would bo even welcomed by the present Homo Secretary , who has lately expressed his desire to bo stimulated and strengthened in all reforms by tho voice of the nation applied to the ear of Downing-street .

    1044 The Leader- [Saturday ,

    1044 THE LEADER- [ Saturday ,

    The New Turkish Loan. The Announcement, ...

    THE NEW TURKISH LOAN . The announcement , that tho Turkish Government is endeavouring to raise immediate moano for present purposes , in sufficient in some quarters to excite an anti-Turkish feeling ; and we are not surprised to see this feeling echoed even iu tlie commercial columns of the Times .- — - " It , appears by tho advioon from Constantinople , that Turkoy ooubomnlatoH tho poKflilnlity of raining a . loan of 2 , fi 00 , 0 ( KM . m London at ton por oont ., and that hIm coiihmIcth tho ropuyinont of tho hint loan to

    lmvo takon place on torniM to warrant Hiich an application . Thin , howovor , w a groat doliifiion . Tho conditioiiH of that loan wero of a nature to imluco porooiiH to buy tho Htock . sit upward ** of olovon por cent , premium ; and when tho Sultan , after ufiinpf tho money for many nionlhfl , repudiated tho acts of hiH MinintoiH , ami rofiiHcd to fulfil thoHo condition ^ the holders wore arbitrarily eompollod to accept throo porcont . as a compensation . It in true that , after tho protracted jVDxioticn to which thoy woro oxpoHed , they wore glad to p ot ovon an inadequate ) coinpromiso ; but it was a

    severe reproach to the Turkish Government that Buch should have been the case . The public will also bear in mind , that it was the present Minister by whom the former loan was contracted , and whose acts , having been disowned once , may be expected to meet with a similar fate at any future time . " Kothing occasions greater surprise to ourselves in common with the public , than the obstinate attempt of our great contemporary to write in a .

    Russian rather than an English sense , and to accommodate its language to St . Petersburg rather than to the truth . Amongst the many eccentricities with which our great contemporary perplexes the public , this is one of the most curious . The paragraph which we have just quoted appears to be written , however , by a writer who has only a London knowledge of the facts to which lie refers .

    There is nothing in the history of the former loan discreditable to the Turkish Government , however infelicitous may have been the first appearance of that Government in the money market as a borrower . The circumstances were quite peculiar . In the first place , theTre was the fact of novelty , The Turkish Government is not amongst those States whose loans are dragged in the mire of the market , and whose very name is excluded from the Stock Exchange , like that of Spain . It was new to the business , and we need not be surprised if it handled the affair with some want of dexterity . So much , may be confessed . The fact is , however , that the character imparted to the loan in the markets of London and Paris

    was scarcely that which it bore in the Divan of the Sultan . It is well known that the Koran prohibits the borrowing of money at interest . The Mussulman religion , like the Christian , forbids usury ; the Moslems differ , however , from the Christians , in the fact of obeying their religion . With the progress of commercial principles , they seem on the eve of learning better . Advances of money had been made to the Turkish Government from time to time—not , of course , at interest , and yet with certain advantages to those who procured the assistance ,

    and who were principally Armenian merchants . A very enterprising financier , whose name has been already mentioned to our readers , M . Baltazzi , or more properly Baltagi , succeeded with a French capitalist , M . Aldon , in establishing tho Bank of Constantinople , we believe with some Armenian merchants ; and this Bank undertook to procure the advances . The Turkish Government of course concurred . There is great reason , however , to doubt whether the Government of the Sultan understood that it was to

    appear publicly in the 'European market as contracting for a loan , and thus doubly violating Mussulman principles by taking money at interest , and by dealing with Infidels . That tho Bank of Constantinople should raise money , that it should use such vouchers as consisted in its understanding with the Turkish Government , would have been correct ; but we are now inclined , to believe that tho contractors for the loan somewhat overstepped their authority . When tho circumstances T > ecamo known , many influences induced the Turkish Government to withdraw frnm n orvmvww . t . -whityh Lml l- » ftfvn tllUS partially

    infringed on tho other side . Wovorthelcss , although the loan was disclaimed , the instalment which had been advanced was most honourably replaced ; and although tho loan had been m tlie market only two months , three per cent , interest was paid for tho accommodation , notwithstanding that it had been declined . Although the X urkwji Government appears to us not to hiisvo acted wiu the adroitness which might havo been <« pecica from experienced and accomplished financier . , must bo admitted to have behaved with flin 6 JJ " honesty , and indeed with a nico sense oi ftonoi . There is nothing in the transaction to damage credit of tho Sultan ' s Government . J __ _

    There is nothing in the material circumel am ^ of Turkey to do ho . If anything can > varr ^ Government in anticipating its future rcBom ^ .. it is the continuing growth of tho resources at - command . TJioresoureos ofTiirkoy- )» avo bcon ox paneling with tho increased freedom oi tuo P * 1 d The province of Bulgaria especially lias ™ } °£ * progress ; and tho expansion of our own i ^ the Ottoman empire ifl a sufficient P ™<] pU (! . elasticity of its resources . Should Lul ^ ft

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), Oct. 29, 1853, page 12, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_29101853/page/12/