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Leader (1850-1860), 29th October 1859, Edition 2 of 2, Page 17, The Great Stieglitz JTailtjre. — The Ber...

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      Terest And Horrify Them To The Extent Th...

      liberal communal law . The two first are already in part carried out . The two last remain in abeyance ; and although the future welfare of the Austrian monarchy depends upon their accomplishment there is but little disposition evinced on the part of the Government to fulfil the promise held

      There is a prospect of some trouble with the Protestants of Hungary and the neighbouring countries . The Imperial patent issued on the 1 st ult ., of which The Leader gave an analysis , was extolled bythe Jesuit and Ultramontane press as a praiseworthy , and conciliatory measure of reform , which would be received with gratitude by the Hungarian Protestants . It was difficult , as usual , for the mere news-seeking reader to penetrate the darkly-intricate sentences of the-official document , but a careful study soon enabled any one to perceive that the pretended boons offered were nothing more than so many pitfallsWhile pretending to restore to the . Protestants

      . their self-government in Church and school affairs , which they had enjoyed from the sixteenth century till 1848-49 , the Government recommended the Imperial officials to keep a strict watch over both churches and schools , which were made subordinate to the Imperial authorities . The consequence is , as might have been expected , the Protestants reject the pretended boon . On the 27 th of last month a congress of the Protestants of the Tlieiss district was held , under the presidency of the representative of the seven free towns of the Zips . It was unanimously resolved to beseech the Emperor in a petition

      to restore the Protestant Church its guaranteed and original rights , or , at air events , to the position it held prior to 1848 , because they could not accept the conditions of the patent , which assumed the right of dictating in the ecclesiastical and scholastic affairs of the Protestants of Hungary , without the consent of the Synod of the country . Besides , the Government of the Emperor or King have pretended to reserve a power to which they never had a claim- — viz . * the selection of the school-books , the language through which the children should be instructed , and the course of study .

      The Protestants of Hungary are a bright example for Germany . The supervision of the schools by the authorities and the censorship of the press nullify , of course , the knowledge of reading and the use of school-books . The affairs of Hessin have come un'ler the consideration of the Federal JL > it ! t since the . vacation . The result is expected to lie a . new constitution constructed from the old constitution , which the people of Hessia want in toto , and the last one concocted by Austria , Prussia , and the Elector together , which the people do not want at all . The celebrated composer , Ludwig Spohr , died last Saturday evening at Cassel , wh ^ e he had been settled since 1822 . He was in his seventy-sixth year .

      So. 501. Oc-R. 89. 1859-1 The Leader. 12...

      So . 501 . Oc-r . 89 . 1859-1 THE LEADER . 1205

      The Great Stieglitz Jtailtjre. — The Ber...

      The Great Stieglitz JTailtjre . — The Berlin Banking Gazette of the 21 st inst . expresses doubts as to the contemplated retirement of Baron Stieglitz being fulfilled . It is said that the Emperor is believed to be fully sensible of the services the Baron has rendered to Russian finance , as well as of the different results that might under his auspices have attended the recent loan , and that some arranger ment is therefore likely to be adopted to induce him to continue business . Should such be the case it is assumed that M . "Von . Kniajewitsch , the Finance Minister , who has been the personal opponent of the Baron , will withdraw from office . Trade qf the Month . —The Board of Trade returns for the month are again satisfactory . The exports for September were more than eleven and a half millions sterling in value , nearly one million more than in the same month last year , and half a million more than in September , 1857 . . Taking , too , the number of vessels employed in the shipping trade , the figures show a great increase of tonnage , and make one wonder what the shipping interest can mean by their cry of distress .

      Loch Katrine In Glasgow. Glasgie's Just ...

      LOCH KATRINE IN GLASGOW . Glasgie ' s just a' right the noo She has gat Loch Katrine brought her ; Ever she had mountain dew , Now she rins wi' mountain water . Hech the blessin ' , ho the boon To ilka drouthio Glasgle bodie ! Sin' there ' s water in the toun , Ouro cnouch to male' its toddie . Glasgio chiels , a truth ye'll learn , New to mony a Scot , I ' m thinkln '; Water , niblins , ye'll discern , Was na gi ' cn alane for driukin . ' Hartds and face ye'll scrub at least , Frao nno until anithor Monday , Gif nao Sabbatarian benst Stap your water-warka on Sunday . —PuncA

      Commercial.

      COMMERCIAL .

      Guarantees And Subsidies. Tjinglish Mana...

      GUARANTEES AND SUBSIDIES . TjiNGLISH management , it is said , has become J-1 ; so unfavourably known in the share market that foreign railways placed under it , though they have a guaranteed rate of profit , are sure to fall to a discount . This is at once new and unexpected . English management is decried . It may be a consequence of the guarantee system . At least , such a system must induce mismanagement . The guarantee in most cases is sure , in the first instance , to drive the shares up to premium . Then the men who have projected the undertaking , placed their friends on the directory , given the works into the hands of some favoured engineer , may find some other arid better emp loyment for their capital , and leave the concern in the hands of those who have entered it only to serve some sinister purpose of their own . As the Times shows , the gurrantee is a lure for shareholders . They , however , cannot immediately acquire a sufficient knowledge of the concern to take it into their own handsiftheyhave the will ; and it is sure to be- . ¦ -

      , come a mere job . Some projectors , some directors , some engineers , and some contractors , by this mode of going to work , have acquired large fortunes ; and some of the noblest and most useful enterprises that ever were undertaken have become ruinous as commercial speculations . The guarantee system has ensured the success of jobbing , and has extended it . We cannot say it is the parent of jobbing ; this is inherent in the national character , affects equally corrupt electors , corrupt representatives , and corrupt ministers . It is another proof , however , that Government cannot even so far interfere with business as to give one portion of it this apparently feeble encouragement without doing mischief .

      it by this ' unwarranted interference . Qf the shipping , interest , it is true , as well as of other interests , that the rate of profit in it must , on the average , be / generally equal . The result , therefore , of these bounties was to increase too fast the number of new and most improved ships , and by undue competition to lower the average rate oi profit amongst shipowners . MS . GLADSTONE . If it were possible—which it is not- ^ -to place any confidence in the declarations of our statesmen—be they who they may—we might hope that this ruinous system would receive its deathblow from the Chancellor of the Exchequer . At the Holyhead festival he pathetically bewailed th « readiness of the originators of enterprises to resort to an assault on the public purse . " The old principle , " he said , " that the assistance of Government should never be extended to private enterprise , unless under circumstances of rigid and extreme necessity , had been greatly departed from of late years . I believe , " he added , " that . a toe ready resort to the public purse has been mischievous , and has operated as an absolute discourager ment to enterprise . " But such sentiments have been expressed over and over again by all our statesmen . They have thundered against bounties and discriminating duties , and even in thundering against them have re-enacted them . These subsidies and guarantees are , in fact , but another name for discredited bounties . Our statesmen , therefore , are not to be trusted when they can get an increase of patronage and power by departing from a principle . Mr . Gladstone was palpably in error -when he attributed the disposition to attack the public purse to the commercial failure of railway enterprise . It began long" before railways were introduced , and was much encouraged by some of Mr . Gladstone ' s predecessors , who were loudest in their professions of free trade . He is also obviously in a muddle about the advantages of legislation , and encourages , appeals for assistance to the Legislature by magnifying its power . He said , " I do not believe , in the whole history of the world , an instance can be found , either of an age or a nation , in which it has been graciously conceded to a Legislature to do so much for the benefit of a people committed to its charge as it has been permitted ! by the British Parliament to do in the present era by the changes which it has circumspectly and wisely , but boldly and effectually , introduced in our commercial code . " We should have been prompt to tell Mr . Gladstone that the Legislature was compelled to make these changes , and that the national prosperity is the result of skill and industry which the Legislature had no hand in improving . But we find this ingenious and subtle gentleman admitting , in another part of the same speech , that his course , as Chancellor of the Exchequer , " is determined by what is felt by the mass of the community , and especially by those intelligent and really governing classes of whom he had an important portion before him . " He admitted , too , that the ministry " had a noble master in the British nation . Now , unless he means to assert that the Legislature is the British nation , as contradistinguished from the the public and the Ministers , Mr . Gladstone declares , in one and the same breath , that the nation is the noble master of the ministry , which guides the Legislature , and that the noble master is , at the same tune , committed "to the charge" of his imnistiy-giudod Legislature . How the nation can be at once the master of the Government , and under its charge , requires an Oxford education to comprehend . We can see only that when the " noble master' has had sense , spirit , and right knowledge enough t 6 take its affairs into its own hands and compel the Legislature , led by the administration , or tlio nations ignoble servants , to abstain from inflicting only a siniilfnortion of the mischief it continually milicta on its charge , " tlien the nation prospers amazingly ; and politicians like Mr . Gladstone , who would have prevented it if they could , assume to themselve s the credit of having bestowed benefits on the nation . It is the still restricted industry of the people ¦ which gives us wealth- —not legislation , lor such reasons we cannot possibly place any confidence in Mr . Gladstone ' s present professions , and wo cannot hono that ho will put an end to the " guarantee " and " subsidy " sya terns , though ho acknowledges

      ROYAL MAII , PACKET COMPANY . There is another mode in which Government interference lias latterly done great mischief to shipping and trade . It was beguiled and flattered , some twenty-eight yenrs ; ago , to crive a subsidy to a company , to enable it ; to establish and carry on mail-packet- c ommunication with the United States . The sum granted was considerably more that a fair remuneration for carrying letters and mails under a system of competition- From subsidising one company it subsidised another and anotheir , and now the amount of subsidies it pays to different companies for carryiug mails , & c ., is

      very little short of £ 1 , 000 , 000 a year . One of the companies which gets a very large sunx— £ 270 , 000 , per annum , payable quarterlythe Royal Mail Company , announced last week that its profit for the half-year had been £ 132 , 581 ; but many deductions have to be made , and the sum left to be appropriated to dividends was only £ 30 , 000 . This is only the ninth-part of the sum received from the Government , or , doubling it for the year , £ 60 , 000 ; we may then say that the real earnings of the Company , exclusive of the Government grant ,

      are £ 210 , 000 a-year , less than nothing . At the same time we ai * e assured by Mr . Campbell , speaking at Holyhead , that this payment is made a pretext for checking steam boat speed . From these facts it is quite plain that this particular subsidy—and , no doubt , the case is the same with other subsidies—keeps alive inefficiency and incompetency . They stifle enterprises which would pay , to keep comp anies in existence which manage so badly that they do not pay . This is not all . The grant of these subsidies by our Government induced the American

      Government to make similar grants , the consequence of which was that several more steam-vessels were placed on the line between America and England than could find profitable employment 5 and the American vessels , in spite of the subsidy , having caused a ruinous loss to their owners , wore withdrawn , as were the subsidies granted by the American Government . Excited by our pornioious example the American Government , in order to secure the superiority of American stoam ? ships , inflicted by its bounties immense mischief on American shipping . Under this forcing system the shipping , both of the United States and of England , has become somewhat redundant . More ships have been built to catch a share of those bounties than trade could employ , and the shipping interest has suffered deeply from the undue competition introduced into

  • Citation
    • Leader (1850-1860), Oct. 29, 1859, page 17, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_29101859/page/17/