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Leader (1850-1860), 31st December 1853, Edition 2 of 2, Page 11

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      Lord Palmerston And The Lancashire Strik...

      his own mill ; that if he cannot work at a commercial profit in England , he will go away ; that if the cost of production be raised above a certain height in this country , we shall be unable to meet the manufacturers of America , Belgium , Germany , France ; and that probably , after the strike , all the hands who have put themselves out of work will not be re-absorbed into employment . All this is true , and it will meet with the perfect concurrence of those employers to whose class th e Lancashire Man belongs ; but it is said in that " affable" kind of way which is peculiarly

      offensive to those to whom it is addressed ; and we know that it has been met amongst the workingclasses with a desire that it should be " answered . " It tells a few truths , delusive even to those who recognise their truth , because they are partial ; and it puts them in such language as would not invite , but repel the concurrence of the workingclasses . The Address , in like manner , has of course received the acclamations of the author's constituents f but it is equally calculated to delude them by the partial character of its truth ; and it can

      have no force with those who perceive the truth in another light . The argument is mainly this . The author is endeavouring to show that the manufacturers must be wrong , if not dishonest , in saying that the cotton trade is less profitable than it used to be ; and he works out his case by comparin g the declared value of exported cotton goods , month for month , in 1852 and 1853 ; the exports of 1853 showing a great increase . For the month of November , for example , the exports had increased from 4 , 855 , 6661 . in 1852 to 6 , 168 , 626 ; . in 1853—an increase of l , 312 , 960 Z . Now this is no contradiction to the statement on the part of

      the manufacturers . That the gross aggregate value of the exports has increased , nobody has ever denied ; but the question is , how many pieces go for that increased value ? It will be found that the quantity has increased far more than the gross aggregate value . It is evident that while a larger number of lower-priced articles may form a larger aggregate sum of money , yet as there are more pieces and also more manufacturers to share the payment , and as the cost of production in raw material , wages , machinery , & c , has not diminished in the same proportion , the profits have been greatly ¦ nan-owed . Now the statement of the

      manufacturers is this : —if they were to suffer a rise in the cost of production , the cost price would so nearly approach the selling price , that it would not be worth the manufacturer ' s while to keep his mill going , and lie would rather give up business altogether . The manufacturer has as much right to strike as the working-man—both are using the right at present ; both sides , however , cannot abstain from making some appeal to public opinion ; but neither side has yet taken the trouble to g ive that information in distinctness and in detail which would enable all the world to judge . ¦^ Lord Palmerston has felt this difficulty . Nothing can be more oFeditable to him as a statesman than

      his frank " sympathy with a large number of a most deserving class who have been led to think that they have been suffering under acts of injustice , " or his regret at their sufferings , and his recognition of the temper and moderation with which their memorial is drawn . But , he says , it would be impossible for him , without much more detailed information than ho possesses , to form a just opinion on the merits of the points in dispute . Public opinion , to which both sides appeal , cannot pronounce a iuderment , because neither side lavs

      before it information in detail . There is reaBon to fear that neither side forms a perfectly distinct apprehension even of its own case , for want of the same explicit analysis of the facts . The working classes should try to give Lord Palmerston detailed information , of which lie justly declares the want . They now have the challenge from the Home-office , and not only are they bound in honour to accept it , but the very endeavour to comp ly with the want that Lord Palmorston rightly feels , would constitute a study well worth the labour which undoubtedly it involves .

      December 31/1853] The Leader: 1 259

      December 31 / 1853 ] THE LEADER : 1 259

      The Toint Of Attack In Austria.. N< ? 1j...

      THE TOINT OF ATTACK IN AUSTRIA . . ? 1 jIS 111 Mk n understand bad government very distinctly when it presents itself in the shape of oppressive , and yet resultleos , taxation . To tax people is " vulgarly" regarded ns an original sin of rulers ; but to tax thorn without profit adds wil y to crime . We have before cullod attention to the utalo of the finances of Austria , and they arc worth a continued attention bu the part

      of those who take any interest in the recovery of English influence on the Continent , or in the progress of constitutional freedom . We , indeed , apply this financial truth somewhat differently from the ordinary fashion . We do not hold with Mr . Gobden , and other economists of his class , that a nation cannot go to war whose finances are deranged . There is no a priori logic which can prove any such proposition , and experience as little confirms the assertion . as abstract logic ; for although we have had instances of states making a peace , because they had overspent their money on war , yet that argument has never prevailed until enormous sums had been sacrificed to the desire

      for victory . The United States of America often harassed' Washington with short supplies ; but still they did manage to find supplies enough to purchase their independence . When Napoleon lacked means , he rendered war self-supporting . England did not feel financial exhaustion until she had spent nearly a thousand millions sterling . And Austria has kept up a war establishment throughout a great part of the peace , and has paid the expenses of the Russian auxiliaries , notwithstanding the assurance of peace economists , that Austria could not go to war because of the expense . So

      far as the expense of war is concerned , she incurs It ^ already . Nevertheless , her financial condition must have great influence on her political prospects . It is the weak point ; but we ought to understand how that Weak point is to be hit . Our readers will remember that the " Impartial Observer , " who wrote a rose-pink account of " The Present State of the Finance and the Currency in Austria , " endeavoured to show that all was in the most promising condition . The annual deficit , he said , which had been 122 , 000 , 000 florins in the

      revolutionary year 1849 , had fallen to 54 , 000 , 000 florins , and would be still less in the current year ; he entered into minute particulars to show how the paper currency , with which Austria has from time to time raised the wind , was in process of redemption ; he pointed to a reduction of the army as a means of keeping down the expenses ; he described Lombardy as " recovering" after the revolutionary disorder of 1848 , and he prohiised new acquisitions to the exchequer from the emancipation of the peasantry and from a new survey of the land-tax in Hungary .

      Now let us look at the working and the results of these promised plans . In Lombardy the plan is this : The people , as all our readers know , are kept in subjection by the most tyrannical means ; three cannot meet in the streets ; people who hold revolutionary writings or " revolutionary objects , " even unknown to themselves , if not still liable to death under Gorczkowsky ' s proclamation , are liable , whether men or women , to be imprisoned and "beaten by sticks in public ; and , as we know , the rioh are liable to have their property confiscated without inquiry . The Austrian Government announces to the Central Council in

      Lombardy the gross sum which it requires , and the local municipalities have the privilege of assessing locally the distribution which the Central Council requires from them . Lombardj r lias cost Austria a great deal , in the military charges of reducing her to submission , and will probably continue to cost more than she did before 184 S , because there is the incessant example of constitutional freedom and parliamentary representation in Piedmont , next door to the Lombards , who cannot speak , meet , read , nor do anything but pay taxes . However , the expenses of keeping down the Lombards are declining from what they were in 1848 , and that is what the Austrian financier means when he says that " Lombardy is recovering . "

      In Hungary the nobles commenced , in 1825 , to surrender the privileges which they had too long held ; and although the constitution was still disfigured , oven down to 1849 , with distinctions belonging to a past age , few could ho discontented with the progress which the country had made , and was still making , in practical freedom . Austria hns more than once appeared , like all despotic Governments , as the patron of the working classes for crooked purposes . To extinguish a nationality this conservative power , par excellence , preserver of order and saviour of ( society , organised a savage communiHfcio terrorism , which has found no parallel in revolutionary nnnnlH . The peasantry in' Gallicia were set to burn the manmons and to

      murdflr the nobles at a fixed price per head , paid by Government ; and the flmno authority conceived the idea of freeing the peasants in

      Hungary , in order that they might produce more , and that the Austrian exchequer might rake the surp lus to itself . A new survey of the land-tax has been instituted ; and , according to the last report , the tax is levied equally in the central province of Austria , where the land has a value like that in our own metropolitan county , and in Hungary , an agricultural and pastoral county , where there are still great grass plains which have been likened to the prairies of America . It is true that the land is fertile , and that the timber is of the best ; but what is timber in its native woods before it is

      brought to market ? Before Hungary could be taxable , acre for acre , equally with Austria Proper , she should have equal roads , and equal accessibility to markets . The impoverishing tendency of the new system is such , that even the peasantry feel little gratitude for the imperial favour . If by the exercise of military control , the semi-patriot , semi-profligate robbers , the Robin Hoods of Hungary , have been put down , the place of the robber is supplied by the tax-gatherer , who comes to demand , in an alien tongue and insolent fashion , the "black mail of imperial exaction .

      Now what prospect is there that this state of things will improve ? Let us see . The deficit which was to have diminished this year , amounts to 95 , 000 , 000 florins ; the reduction of the forces which was to have been carried out ^ has been abandoned ; and" the paper money which was to have been redeemed , has been subject to a new kind of manoeuvre . It has been announced , that paper money received in payment of taxes will be subject to a discount of 15 per cent . This act

      on the part of the Austrian Government is as if a bank were to offer to receive its own promissory notes at a discount ; but there is this differencethat the notes of the banker are voluntarily received by somebody in the first instance , whereas the issue of the Austrian paper is compulsory . Austria has been trying to borrow money , and for that purpose has made elaborate attempts to prove her credit sound . The pressure on the exchequer , therefore , which dictates this last swindling trick , must be

      excessive and urgent ; yet Austria cannot forego her military expenses , nor can she of course waive her exactions upon Lombardy and Hungary—Lombardy and Hungary which abut close upon countries constitutional in their politics or free in their commerce , and stirred with the desire to shake off Absolutist oppressions . This is the weak point of Austria . She can go to war—notwithshe does to

      standing the bankrupt exchequer , go war ; nay , despite the hatred it excites , she must grasp her provinces more cruelly in her claws , and must devour them more voraciousl y with her double beak . In proportion as Austria aspires to exercise her strength in Europe , she must make her own subjects hate her . Her two richest appurtenances , the Lombardo-Venetian provinces and the Hungai-ian kingdom , are her natural enemies—the natural allies of her enemies .

      Radowitz And Prussia's Third Opportunity...

      RADOWITZ AND PRUSSIA'S THIRD OPPORTUNITY . Radowitz is dead . The statesman whose varied life had , at so important a period , been passed by the side of the Prussian throne , has been removed from the scene j ust as Prussia is once more called upon to select her destiny , lladowitz was a reformer who had sympathies that commanded a response in the bosom of Frederick William . His peculiar mind enabled him to form a link between the severed trinity of feudality , German philosophy , and Anglican constitutionalism . Ilia attempts at constitution-making , indeed , were more

      marred by mysticism than distinguished by that grasp of practicabilities which enables men to command the situation . But we must remember , that if Kadowitz proposed , Frederick William disposed ; that the statesman might not have been more practical , if he had proposed measures unlikely to ho accepted by the monarch whoso fiat was awaited . He was the equerry that , in the rugged and unfamiliar path of reform , led the horse of a king with a timid heart and an uncertain head ; and of course ho was obliged to nccommodato his guidance to the foibles of his charge . He has now gone , and uhould Frederick William once , more need to take horse for that troublous path , he will perhapa miss hia faithful equerry .

      For , unquestionably , Prussia has now a third opportunity , after having mi . ssed two of no promising u character . In 1848 , when the spontaneous heaving of Europe loosened Germany to its foundations , the King of Prussia hud the fir & t of these three opportunities . The way had been

  • Citation
    • Leader (1850-1860), Dec. 31, 1853, page 11, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_31121853/page/11/