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1044 THE LEADER- [Saturday ,
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THE NEW TURKISH LOAN. The announcement, ...
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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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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 i oIl eeed , as ' is probable , in preventing tho anno * of her empire to that of Kussia , a moBt »« P ^ trade to this country will bo rescued ; " m sources from which the loan ifl to bo ropai ^ bo preserved , and tho interests of our o ^ u
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Citation
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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/
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