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Leader (1850-1860), 27th December 1851, Edition Town of 2, Page 1234

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      More Troops—The National Defence. Five T...

      To look to our defences is proper enough , but we need no more paid soldiers for that . If our responsible rulers mean to act honestly , they will trust to the nation itself—to the People . We do not mean the working classes only . We do not desire any cheap and nasty " militia , " composed of wretched paid " substitutes "—the riffraff that can be bought at any day for target practice . We mean a genuine appeal to the body of the nation to come out and do its duty . How many a man is there in the prime of life , or in active youth , endowed with means , accustomed to the saddle and

      to f irearms , and how fine a mounted rifle corps could be formed of such men throughout the country ! How many a sturdy yeoman or labourer , an undegenerate shopman or artisan , who might be a fit and willing material for sound , spirited , wellmatched volunteer corps of infantry ! Frederick Hill has shown how a National Defence Corps might be organized for permanent service at a very moderate cost ; and his suggestion is worth atttention even for a more prompt organization . The appeal would do good in every way ;

      it would breathe a healthy spirit into the People ; it would attest a new confidence on the part of the upper in the middle and "lower" classes ; it would restore something like nationality . With such a plan we should need no more " troops " ; we have enough of them to lead and support a national defence . Standing Armies are but the hobby of a Metternich ; John Bull has had too much of them . Call upon the nation , then , to defend itself , and by the blessing of God we shall have no fear of any results , but the most wholesome and happy .

      gain to us—to all ! A noble . opening now for England and true statesmanship , if it resides amongst us . But such a policy would have no need of five thousand more troops . It might be carried out without the addition of a single man to our Standing Army—already huge , already a burden to the taxpayer , already an official instrument subversive of all real national liberty . This addition of five thousand men is not a happy beginning .

      single regiment of Englishmen—volunteers , even , if they had a national sanction—a single regiment of Americans , headed by the banner which has yet to begin its victories on the field of Europe , would suffice to head that immense host , to give it confidence , " solidarity , " unity of action . Victory would bring solid peace and genuine alliance—tranquillity to Europe , and open commerce . With how little cost to us , with what incalculable

      Freedom , those flags would rally round them the nations of Hungary , Italy , and Germany—would reawaken Poland from the dead—would collect to the host the Liberals of Spain , old followers of Espartero , sons of the followers of Mina and Riego ¦—would recall France to herself—would , in short , raise the People of Europe to a Crusade , in which the Crescent of Islam would join . A

      1534 Lrt)T Yltatftt* [Saturday , ¦ — I.

      1534 lRt ) t yLtatftt * [ Saturday , ¦ — i .

      The Fate Of The "Base Exceptions " Shock...

      THE FATE OF THE " BASE EXCEPTIONS " Shocking doom ! The " base exceptions" in the press have been shamefully " sold . " They have in obedience to inspiration from " high quarters *' backed Lord Palmerston and Louis Napoleon "The base exceptions" supposed they were supporting the Foreign Minister * when lo ! it suddenly turns out that he is no longer Foreign Minister All the efforts of the " base exceptions , " therefore have gone to the account of a private gentleman * They thought they were Ministerial , and they weren ' t ; they thought they were servile , and they find themselves without a master , wasting their sweetness on the desert chair in which he had sat

      The devotedness , however , of these attached servants will carry them even to the death . Of this the Correspondent of the Morning Post affords a beautiful example . He is quite delighted with what has happened . It has rendered Paris charming—it is " rather a civil paradise than a military hell . " Observe , not simply a " paradise , " but a " civil" paradise ; which suggest a great improvement on rude old Eden . The soldiers he regards as simply ushers , without anything so cruel as a flaming sword . " Every bullet has its billet ;" but these bullets were wrapped up in billets doux . The killed , he is sure—we don ' t know

      where he learns it , but perhaps from the instincts of his heart—are not 3000 , but less than 300 . " At the price of so much blood the safety of the capital was secured . " " Those who were shot were soldiers , insurgents , and stupid people—very few honest "—so that if a man was not an honest man , a soldier , or an insurgent , you might set him down among the " stupid "—the dry rubbish . Now , Correspondent was obliged to be among the stupid people—not , of course , by nature , but by office ; at one time " he had to proceed to , and get away from" the midst of eight barricades . The cannon and musketry roared , and , of course , Correspondent intensely perceived the stupidity of

      people who could go out of doors in such weather . " My heart ached to think "—not of myself of course —• " but of the wretches that were being sent to their last account "; for wretches of course they all must have been . " As for myself , "—and here comes the touching part— " had I been , by any accident , entangled in the insurgents , or had a shot been fired from some window above my head—and had I consequently been shot down by the troops , or bayoneted—I certainly should neither have cursed Louis Napoleon , nor expected my family to hold a ' bloodthirsty soldiery ' guilty of my blood . On the contrary , he would naturally feel glad to be so useful !

      West Ward, Ho!—Tjjle Land Of Freedom. " ...

      WEST WARD , HO !—TJJLE LAND OF FREEDOM . " WmiiK Ireland is depopulating herself at the rate of a quarter of a million a year , to swell the musses of the [ American ] Union , emigration to Australia , a country so superior in v itational advantages , is carried on at the rate of some ' 20 , 000 or 30 , 000 a year , " although the bait of the Australian tfoldh'dds might he expected to draw larger numbers . In making this comparison , the Times ascribes the difference to the price of land in Australia , which is five times the American price— £ 1 an acre instead of 1 dollar American currency ; and it ascribes that price to an insidious aim at supporting South Australia . The comparison , however , is full of errors , which it will not be at all profitless to

      . In tlie first place , although the price of land is a pound an acre in name , in fact that price has never been enforced , excepting in the very districts when ; it has not checked the purchase of land . In New South Wales proper the question has been less of the purchase of hind than of procuring pasture licences ; and in tlu ; Southern part of the colony , Port Phillip district ,

      now called Victoria , where purchaNC was more the object , land has been purchased in spite of the price . In Van Dicincn ' s Land llm available land has long since passed into private hands , and we believe that it has never been difficult to obtain any quantity wanted at a cost under the official price . In Western Australia the immense masses alienated when the first ( settlement was formed , have hIho kept the market well supplied at a cheap rate . In South Australia alone the rule has been

      enforced from first to last , practically as well as nominally ; although even there , in individual cases , land has been obtained at a discount on resale . But there , where the rule has been so generally observed , the colonists are well content with its working ; which has contributed to keep the settlers together , and to maintain the steady progress that even the follies of its early officials could only retard . Secondly , let us observe that the golden bait is not likely to expedite genuine settlement ; but , unless the reponsible government act with vigour and discretion , it may expedite a very general unsettlement .

      The real secret of the preference for the United States lies in three elements : in the comparative nearness , which those states share with our own American provinces ; in the number of relatives who have already preceded the emigrants , especially of Irish , who invite their followers over ; and most chiefly in the political and social state of the people . 11 And then , " says a writer , whose letter we published in our last number , " there are our political immunities . We have no such atrocious partnership

      laws as you can boast in England ; no Joint-Stock Companies' Act ! no Combination Laws ! no jealous Governmental interference . And if we had any legal hindrances , we should abolish them in a trice . While , on the other hand , the laws are themselves continually recognizing and enforcing more and more of the social rights claimed for the people . It would fill the remainder of'this sheet to detail the admirable , the glorious concessions to social advance that have of late years been inscribed on the Statute Book of New York State !"

      This is the immense temptation to a large number of English emigrants ; and a large number of Englishmen who do not emigrate , are beginning to wonder why Old England should have grown so sadly unlike her child in these respects . The English People begins to long for a more practical and tangible freedom than the working man can attain in this country , or in any country governed by English officials .

      Now , as to Australia , although Democratic sentiments have made considerable progress to the East , they have not done so in the colony where land is high priced . The reason is , not that the land is high priced—that is an accident that does not tell upon the emigrant , who thinks rather of " employment" than , land-purchase when he first sets out ; but that the plan of colonizing has transferred a body of society to the adopted land , closely resembling society as it is constituted at home . A proof of this is furnished by a remarkable public occurrence in Adelaide , the capital of South Australia . The first Legislative Assembly has just been constituted—a sort of House of Lords and

      Commons sitting together . Mr . John Morphett , one of the earliest settlers , had been distinguished as the leading independent member of the old Council ; and on the establishment of an elective branch to the Legislature , he was offered a seat by more than one constituency . He was , however , nominated by the ( j Jovernor—made a member of the non-elective branch , tantamount to being made , as it were , a Peer . When the Assembly met , it had to choose its Speaker , and it might have been expected to choose one from the elective branch . Not at all . Not disconcerted by

      Mr . Morphett ' s acceptance of a Government seat , the Assembly elected him for its iirst Speaker This establishes the fact that the body of society in the colony still leans strongly to the side of the Mother country and " ¦ constituted authority . " And there can be no doubt that , if Lord Grey had bestowed half as much pains in conciliating the affections of the colonists as he has in alienating them—if , for example ; , he had invited those consultations with delegates from the several colonies which he has received with haughty and repulsive coldness—if he had made honorary offices in the colonies a stepping-stone to colonial offices of

      dignity in the metropolis of the Empire—if he had set the first example of giving an imperial recognition to those official and honorary titles which become an embarrassment and a sore point to the colonist , who finds them unrecofjftii / dil " at home " - — -there can be no doub 1 ., in such cuhc , that * the feeling of attachment to the Mother country might have been redoubled in South Australia , and extended to all the colonies . And emigration to those colonies might indeed have proceeded with ' every needful expedition , if the Colonial-office had expedited it instead of obstructing it , as it has notoriously done . Meanwhile , the fact remains that the most prosperous of the Australian colonies are

      distinguished by a minor infusion of the Den 7 ~~ cratic spirit which old rancours have awakened £ Eastern Australia . It is also the fact , that desnni dency and discontent have bred a feeling in our working population which makes them , on emi grating , sigh , not only for the hopeful field of colo nial industry , but for the political and social freedom of the American Republic .

      "Grand And Pjfioulia.Ll Even'l. Such Is ...

      "GRAND AND PJfiOULIA . ll EVEN'l . Such is the heading of an elaborate bill before us , announcing that the entire stock , valued at £ 45 , 000 , of certain court silkmercers in a fashionable Ktreet in London , is to be sold by a mercer in a more suburban quarter , at a discount of 41 a un «« l cost prices ; the whole to be " une quivocally som off within one month . " The great advantage * accruing to the public from this highly select ana choice property , " we are told , " are utterly beyon 1 the powers of description . " The associations oi the Crystal Palace are invoked : "To facilitate tin . access

      progress of this great Kale , and afford easy to the various departments , the goods will nclassilied and arranged upon the simple and a mirable plan adopted at the Great Inhibition > i 1851 . " The patriotic mercer is delighted at l >< " K " enabled once more to evince the sympathy |« gratitude for past favours , " by " displaying hucU a Glittering Array of Bargains that will thunder t / u » excelling notoriety from one end of the metropo to the other "; ' and by submitting to U [« ' habitants of his " locality , " " a stock for rich" <^» elegance , and genuineness , without parallel , an Low Prices thrilling to contemplate . * ¦ »\ ill // ir ¦¦

      1 J \/ fr A ... » v » I'I mvm * If " - M . *• I 1 All this is amusing enough as a matter of K tylj ^ the art of puffing nature could no lurther « o ; if you look at all beneath tho surface , it ih a meia eholy exhibition . We will presume that u " KenuinenesH " is unparalleled , and that the salt , is just what it purports to be , a wonder of chcapn ^ in that cawo the customer is not trapped , «> y

  • Citation
    • Leader (1850-1860), Dec. 27, 1851, page 1234, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/ldr_27121851/page/14/