On this page

• Text (3)

  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.

  • 

    December 31, 1853.] THE LEADER. 1261

  • 

    YOUNG TORYDOXY. It seems we committed a ...

  • 

    POLITICAL MORALITY.* One's enemies don't...

• Transcript

  • 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.

    Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.

    The Last Bequest Of The Civil Servants. ...

    conceived the idea of making the Civil Servants contribute towards an allowance made to them on superannuation . It was agreed that they should contribute one-half , and they were rated at 5 per cent , on salaries above 100 ? ., and at 2 £ per cent , below that amount . The old salaries were not disturbed . As the allowance , howevejr , is very smallj the Civil Servants usually delay as long as possible the sentence of superannuation ; most of them dying in harness . This is the case with the new men , with those whose appointments date subsequently to 1829 . The effect has teen that those who contribute to the

    Superannuation Fund receive very little in return for their contribution : they pay for the superannuation of those who pay nothing ; and they also pay unacknowledged tax to the State . For instead of forming a fund , as the name professes , what the ¦ State does is simply to pocket the money . Now if the-money had been really funded , it would not only have paid for superannuations , but it would have formed a provident fund to meet pensions for the dependents of the Civil Servants , and which would have sufficed to provide for the-pen-: sionff for all time to come without any further assessment . So that the modern Civil Servants

    who are taxed and get so little , provide for the past , and for the indefinite future , but not for themselves . Ariosto , the Italian poet , who adopted the device of bees smoked out from their hive with the motto "'Sic' vos non vobis , " might have been a Civil Servant . There is now no difference of opinion as to the njustice of this arrangement , and it is understood that the Chancellor of the Exchequer proposes to relinquish the assessment of the 5 or 2 £ per cent .,

    and to grant pensions of superannuation for Civil Servants out of the bounty of the Crown . The genexal committee of the Cival Servants object . They say , very justly , that the service has become used to pay the deductions , and that there is no necessity to abandon the assessment ; that the fund already -accumulated in the hand of Government gives them a moral right to be considered in disposing of that accumulation ; and they desire that while assessment should be continued , the proceeds should be devoted to form a provident fund .

    If the deduction were relinquished , the virtual effect would be a gratuitous rise of salary , in the proportion of 2 | per cent , for the lower salaries , and of 5 per cent , for the higher . Now this would be not a very great advantage ; for while it would be a sort of Christmas gratuity to the less provident , it would only be a trifle more to the income of the more provident , and would do nothing towards that which the service most desires —a safe , certain , and well regulated provident fund .

    Mr . William Farr , of the Registrar-General ' s Office , has shown how an insurance may be provided by annual payments suited to the circumstances of the contributor , and modified in this particular manner , —that if the payment should be temporarily suspended or cease , still the actual value of the amount accrued by accumulation might be secured for its ultimate purpose . Thus ,

    a person who made an annual payment to secure for himself an annuity under certain conditions , another payment to secure an allowance in sickness , and a third payment to secure an allowance for his survivors , would be sure of receiving a pension to some amount apportioned to his actual payments—although sickness might have disabled him from contributing his payment ; and he would secure the allowance to his survivors ,

    although sickness or superannuation had cut off his payment on that score . . In other words , Mr . ¦ Fiirr shows how savings might be laid up , and distributed for three purposes , with an absolute appropriation for them , in lieu of the present plan of insurance , which is calculated on the probability that if payments bo stopped the accumulated amount will be forfeited . These tables are peculiarly suited to the Civil Service , since the risk of superannuation and cessation are comparatively small . The narrow amount of the salaries in the

    Cavil Service , however tends to check any voluntary insurance , and a voluntary insurance is less desired , for this reason . One of the charges upon the civil sorvant consists of the chums of widows and children ; and this is a claim which lew men of humanity can resist , notwithstanding tno more intimate but remoter claims on behalf of the contributor ^ own wife or child at some indeunite period . Now every man would probably bo inclined to insure for his wife and children , if he could bo certain , in the first place , of being protected from that pressing claim in the mean time ,

    and also if he were sure that the custom of charitable contributions would not be continued . At present he counts upon a kirud of higgledyp iggledy chance . He would much rather reduce it to certainty ; but he must have the consent of the whole before the full benefit of the change can , be obtained . We are not without grounds in saying that this is the prevalent feeling of the service ; since the general committee have made the inquiry of all the public servants in London and Dublin , and have obtained an affirmative response of 88 per cent , of the whole

    number . The minority of 12 per cent , is variously distributed into those who made no return from absence or sickness , those who prefer the present system , those who would be glad of the simple release of the reductions , and others of unclassified opinions . The proposed plan of insurance would be guaranteed by the actual accumulations ; that which Government would contribute would be certainty and uniformity ; and the request for so much assistance en the part of Government from its own servants can scarcely be disregarded by the Chancellor of the Exchequer .

    December 31, 1853.] The Leader. 1261

    December 31 , 1853 . ] THE LEADER . 1261

    Young Torydoxy. It Seems We Committed A ...

    YOUNG TORYDOXY . It seems we committed a mistake in considering seriously the position in the religious world assumed by our young Tory contemporary . We humbly ask pardon for having indulged the illusion for a moment . It is plain that its professions on the subject of religion had no purpose ^ ex cept what belongs to an apocryphal faction ; that they constituted not a confession of faith , but an apology for a hit at the Coalition , whom it is not our business to defend . The retort in the Press of last week leaves no doubt as to this . No doubt our young Tory friends are quite right in turning away from the gravest discussion with a schoolboy ' s scoff . We are not ashamed to express regret , for ourselves , that we have been betrayed into supposing that they were in earnest—even on the subject of religion .

    Political Morality.* One's Enemies Don't...

    POLITICAL MORALITY . * One ' s enemies don ' t often write books ; but it is a great advantage when they do ; for then the assailed meets face to face , and can deal with the hoarded hate , and all it can suggest , of all whom he has conquered—or forgiven . Some gentleman—as a politician , we suspect he belongs to the tea party—has written a book against Mr . Disraeli ; not a light guerilla pamphlet , but an artillery-division book—a solid quarto , of about 640 massive pages . This is " A Literary and Political Biography , " " addressed to the new generation ;"—the object being to " expose" the real character of Mr . Disraeli , and to point a

    disastrous moral to his sinister career . The writer acknowledges that he is terrified by the cheers with which the Oxford under-graduates saluted Vivian Grey when he entered the theatre to receive his degree ; and this painfully proper person appeals to the cheerers against their idol—who , sure of the affection of the advancing , is supposed to be able to afford indifference to the doubts of the receding , generation . Such a warning , based upon the political application of the thrilling story of Tom who didn ' t care , is worthy of a school master ' s views of the exigencies of contemporary politics ; and the stylo of the exhortation is the style of one who has always been a boy among

    men . We are not aware whether the Peclite party , who have to face the session with but one dreadthe dread of Mr . Disraeli—have put up a pedagogue to print this pretentious lecture . But it is very certain that , as Mr . Disraeli ' s power will , next session , depend on the point of what he says , not on his own character for virtue ; a solemn silliness like this book will but aggravate the gling of the sarcasm , and the world ' s enjoyment of it .

    Whatever Mr . Disraeli s crimes , we are not participators ; and if the Tories cannot defend their adopted and their champion , then he is defenceless . But on the question raised , in reference , to Mr . Disraeli— -What is political morality?—we have to object to singling out an individual for u reproach duo to n system and ii Tho lli tf lit Honourable Bonjmnin l > im * ncli , M . I' . A Literary and Political Biography , nddroaaed to tho New ( Jiuioration . Ucntloy . 185 ' 1 . loa .

    class . Personally , Mr . Disraeli does not afflict us , either as a writer or as a politician : and it is odd that . the serene essayist of these complacent 640 pages has undertaken to guard youth against the seductiveness of a writer whom he regards only as a writer of persiflage , and of a politician who is only a " phosphorescent" satirist . We cannot see Mr . Disraeli ' s sins . His assailant supposes that Mr . Disraeli has carried perr sonal and political satire to an excess unprecedented in our history : and such a supposition is natural in a person whose knowledge of Parliamentary history enables him to assert that Gerard

    Hamilton was the only man who ever made a successful first speech in the Commons . We have great faith in the usefulness of political insolence ; we believe the horror of a mot is not less effectual than a knowledge of the law of impeachment in keeping statesmen in order . We are also quite sure that a satirist cannpt succeed , unless he happens to be right ; and that a libel does no harm , beyond a momentary mischief , if the assertion be not true . But it cannot be denied , that of all the wit ever manifested in Parliamentary and political debate , the wit of Mr . Disraeli is the most polished .

    He was never once called to order m his most excited—and they were perhaps malignant—analysed of ° the bizarre character and coarse career of Peel ; " and in republishing those novels and sketches , which the awful author of the * ' Biography" denounces , in decent sorrow , as disgraceful for their poisoned personalities , it is remarkable that Mr . Disraeli has not , in a deliberate revisal , seen occasion to alter a syllable . This last circumstance , indeed , should have been considered by our author , were he not too sad to be syllogishis

    tic , as the complete refutation of one of mam propositions— -that Mr . Disraeli must be a political profligate to consent to lead Tories without believing in Toryism . Bolingbroke , this writer says , could not be a real Tory leader , because he was an infidel , consequently incredulous of the Church creed , on which Toryism depends . Now it happens that no Tory leader , except Percival , has , since 1800 , given any clear proof that he believed in a tittle of the tenets of the Church he upheld . But , at least , it must be admitted that Mr . Disraeli is the most honest of all these

    Protestant and Tory chiefs ; for whatever the facility with which he has accepted the position a caste of Cretins , needing him , were compelled to offer him , there can be no doubt whatever that in all his works he has expressed with the utmost candour his profound contempt , in principle and detail , for Church and State . He has justified the Jews for the * crucifixion : he has ridiculed the aristocracy : he has analysed the Venetian constitution ; and he has declared that in England there are " two nations . " The great error of those who study such a biography as that of Mr . Disraeli is in applying to him a set of moral rules which would be even only partially applicable to n Burke or a Canninor—native adventurers . Mr .

    Disraeli is not merely a professed adventurer , but he is a professed foreign adventurer . Thomas Paine , in a French assembly , was more French than Mr . Disraeli is in an English assembly . U I , Sir , have no hereditary or class convictions , " he told the House of Commons : and all his . superiority , as a critic of politics , springs from the f ; ict that he can have no political passions , being no patriot—that he can . have no political prejudices , having no local

    principles . This superiority sustains him against all charges of sycophantic inconsistency in alternating his partialities among parties . His solo object , as a professed foreign adventurer , who never disguises his notions of the degradation of the country in which his lot ; is cast , is to pain " power—or , if not power , fame ; purely , if possible : but nt all events power or faints : and when the Tones elect him to the captaincy they , not he , are disgraced—thoy do not use . him—he uses' them . He told the world

    when he was only nineteen that it was Ins oyster ; and he has ever since kept the sword wherewith to reach the fish- — or the pearl—flashing in the world ' s eyes . The prolonged and decorous howl of this Biography could only be excused by tho display of proof that Mr . Disraeli is a sinner among saints — a solitary black sheep among a mild iloelc . This genteel purist appears to take for granted , like so many innocent Englishmen , tha t their " House" is u in order , " and that an advontnrous burglar , of unroutine manners , haa no business in it . But in estimating both tho immorality and tho danger of Mr . Disraeli , we must inquire—what has ho done ? An if" in history

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), Dec. 31, 1853, page 13, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_31121853/page/13/