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Leader (1850-1860), 20th December 1851, Edition Town of 2, Page 1208, Untitled Article

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      Untitled Article

      tions of society" ? Burglary is the will of God ; massacre of unoffending , unresisting men and women is also the will of God ; and the fundamental conditions of society are , " Vote for me , ox—pif , paf , puf ! " M . Montalembert decides for the President because he crushes the Socialists —and plays into the hands of the priests : two

      incomparable services . His letter will not make people in England entertain more amiable feelings with regard to the Church ; and yet what is it but a frank avowal of the old Catholic sentiment , which is , " Glory be unto Rome ; glory unto those who bring her the loaves and fishes be they bought or stolen j glory unto the Devil himself if he will only give back to the Church her plenitude of dignity " !

      The Divine Right of the Sabre is now the creed of France . The Church consecrates it . With the Sword in one hand and the Word in the other , what can Despotism fear ? Mr . Cobden , mellifluous peace-prophet on the tripod of a cotton bale—Mr . Cobden the wise , and " so practical" man—will answer , —Puplic Opinion ! He will tell you , in his " practical " way , that the peace principle is invincible , and that the cotton bales are the best

      armaments of a nation . We have always held that Peace should be the aim of society ; but we reject the notion of its being the means to attain that aim at all times and in all places . " Public Opinion , " too , is a mighty influence where it exists ; but on the Continent it has no existence . If one thing is plain above all others in Continental affairs at this moment , it is that the conditions of peace do not exist , and that Public Opinion is a fiction .

      If the Peace doctrines be listened to , there will be Retribution fall on England ere long . The lesson of the hour is not " disarmament" and pacific reliance on the magic of public opinion ; but national preparation !—War , if needful!—outflashing of the Sabre the safeguard of Public Opinion , as the guard-iron sweeps away obstacles from the path of the onrushing train ! Who but " practical " men can think of Louis Napoleon banded with the Cossacks in Europe , and counsel undisciplined England to " peace and nonintervention" ? The

      " Horrors of War " are not to be averted by our being horrified ; to extirpate war , you must extirpate the causes of war . The People of England ought to be drilled , and armed , and disciplined from childhood . The People of England must be so drilled and disciplined . If they are supine , a Continental blockade , far more rigorous and extensive than the old one , will follow the triumph of the Cossack ; and then England will have to carve outlets for her manufactures with that very Sabre which is now considered so " uncommercial "—the outlets not being attainable by Public Opinion !

      Untitled Article

      HELP 1 'KOM THE WEST ! Idkas spread rapidly . Now brief the time since we invoked the presence of the " Star-Spangled lianner in Europe . " The thing was laughed at as a chimera ! A few weeks pass , and lo ! it is on everybody ' s lips , swiftly converted into " The Anglo-American Alliance . " Kossuth readily grasped it , eloquently uttered it , and made it the guest of every hearth . Consul Croskey , Attache Lawrance , Ambassador

      Bulwer , Kobert Walker , and , lastly , the Times , have successively taken it up , approved of it , and passed it on to thousands . In this short space of time the chimera had become a reality . The British mind had accepted it . We wore actually looking for help from the West , when the Presidential Message , loured upon us , and all was , for the moment ., darkness again . " Friendly relations with all , entangling alliances

      with none , " is tin ; last , official expression of the American policy of non-intervention . "Millard JKillmore , " signed the document containing that . sentence of death to the expectation that help from the West would arrive in good time to do battle in the ciiuse of European liberty . " Millard 1 'illmore , " signing" his hint Presidential Message , signed away , as far an he could , the liberties of I'Lurope to the despots of Kurope . At the moment when tin : foot .

      of Kossuth touched the free . shores of the transatlantic Republic , bis ear w ; is greeted by the chilling sentence , " Friendly relations with oil , entangling alliances with none . " With all—with Nicholas ? with Francis Joseph ? with Ferdinand ? with M . Bonaparte ? JN'ay , why not with the Devil himself , if profit accrue ? While the Message wa « being read in the , Senate of Washington the troops of the " Prince- President " wore in possession of Paris , prepared lor the massacres of the . \ id and lth of December . And when Kossuth had become ! the £ 'iii : ut of the authorities of JNcw York , Mr . Rivefy

      ambassador from the United States to the French Republic , had already shown that he was a true American by declining to attend the Presidential receptions at the Elysee . Fortunately for Europe , now menaced with the rule of the knout , the dictum of Millard Fillmore can , nay , most likely will , be modified next year ; and a new President will lay down this new doctrine—friendly relations and strict alliance with Peoples alone .

      There is in the United States a rising feeling in behalf of European freedom , a strong sympathy , which will one day show itself in strong deeds , for Italian , Hungarian , and German nationality . " Why should not America intervene in Europe ? Why should not the Stars and Stripes float over the battle-fields of Europe , if battle-fields there must be ? The men of the Union are bound to Europe by ties of blood , language , institutions , and religion . They are descendants of the great

      European races . They have only changed their place of abode . In the great strife for self-government , they have been victorious , and they have given a ready asylum to the vanquished who went bruised and bleeding from the lands of their ancestors . " These are the sentiments of the great democratic party in the United States ; and these sentiments , so honourable to its members , are strengthened by the conviction that it is their duty , as they are strong , to help , in the coming conflict , their weaker brethren here . The New York Herald

      justly calls the Foreign Policy of the Union the " Question of the Day , " and the man most likely to have the suffrages of the democratic party for the Presidency , Judge Douglas , is quite prepared to base that policy on the doctrine that America has the right , as it is her duty , to intervene in Europe , and to throw her moral as well as physical weight in the scale of liberty . The triumph of the Democratic party will be the consummation of the Anglo-American alliance .

      The actual cabinet of the United States is tainted by diplomacy , is disposed to favour the Northern despots , and therefore , adheres to the non-intervention policy , because it is " respectable , " and diplomatic . Even the New York Herald agrees that the present party must be ousted before the democratic party in Europe can hope for help , and admits that the next presidential election will turn on foreign policy—that is , strangely enough , whether the people of the United States will help the Cossack , or the Republican cause !

      Viewed from this point the decisive sentence from the Presidential Message separates the dead from the living idea of America . The past , respectable from its origin , flickers out with Fillmore ; the future , more generous and manful , flames up vividty in the front of the Democratic party , with Jud ^ e Dou glas for their chief . Then Help from the West will be possibleimminent !

      Untitled Article

      "CONCERT , " THE ONLY TltUE "PROTECTION . " Pkotkction is in a sad plight ; all sensible people insisting that it is " dead , " and refusing credence to its gallant army of living martyrs who vigorously assert that the cause they champion is still alive . Consequently , in the full belief that the thing expired in *< 1 (* > , nobody will discuss the question with the said martyrs , who go up and down armed at all points and find no foe . It is doubtless very

      provoking , but really there is nothing to fight about ; the carcass of the ( Join Laws is not worth a broken lance . The subalterns of the old party , so strong in 1 , S < 11 , may set up the mummy and bustle : round about , it as vainly as the priests of liaal round the altar of their god . Our weekly baker's bill tells us plainly when we are minded to inquire , that Protection , as embodied in the Corn Laws , did expire ; in ' 4 (> ; and that , in the ( shape of Corn Laws , it will never rise again .

      But Protection is not only dead- —it is decomposing ; and the elements of which it . was composed are taking other forms . What forms it may ultimately take" we cannot precisely say ; but the meeting of last week furnishes ( some indications . Mr . Ball , of Burwell , instead of crying victory or death , erics victory or wholesale emu / ration ; that is , Corn Laws , or desertion of your country . Mr . Cayley Worsley , a Sussex man , ob-Hcurely hints at a revolt of tenant-farmers , who are to take their own cause into their own hands . Lord Stanhope , points to something like universal suffrage , and talks of * ' Republicanism " an prevailing among the fanners in many counties . Mr . Alexander Campbell , a disciple of Itobert Owen

      vaguely shadows forth an insurrection of Labour demanding fair wages and certain employment in the name of Protection . Mr . CrainV another disciple of Mr . Owen , demands the right « f " citizenship . " And only those Parliamentary persons who know the value of diplomacy , like the Duke of Richmond , Lord Malmesbury / and Lord Berners , adhere to the old vague illusory cry of protection to British industry , meaning protection to British corn . Never were signs of disorganization more prevalent in any party pretending to be one and indivisible with a single aim and

      purpose But the crowning indication of disruption is fur- ' nished by Mr . Paul Foskett , who denounces both free trade and competition , and lets fall the magic word cooperation as expressive of a principle in the development of which lies the future welfare of these islands . We have constantly called the attention of the Country Party to this principle it was advocated by one of themselves , a gentleman present at the meeting last week , Mr . George Pelsant Dawson . In the principle of concert we

      have again and again asserted , lies the germ , not only of success for a party , but of safety for the nation . The only " Protection " possible now , or just at any time , must be found in that principle which is the foundation of society , Concerted as opposed to isolated action , Association as opposed to ^ -association ; and , we ask , what section of Englishmen have a fairer chance of reducing thi 3 principle to practice than those who own and occupy the land ?

      Protection , meaning a duty on corn , is dead ; but the Protectionist party , the landowners , landtillers , and land-occupiers of England—these still exist . As a body their importance was not lessened by Corn-law Repeal ; as a body they are still one of the great elements of British society ; as a body they may yet shape the course of British policy . But it must be as a body . Not , as under Corn-law rule , the landowners monopolising nearly all its transitory benefits , the tenant-farmer enjoying

      very few , the agricultural labourer none . No : if the Protectionist party would again be a great active power in the State , it must adopt the principle of concert in employment and concert in distribution ; nay more , it must recognize the labourer ' s right to that " citizenship " which Lord Stanhope and Mr . Cramp demand ; it must raise the labourer from the sty to which he has been hitherto consigned by landowning rule , and it must make of him , not an animal in the receipt of wages or poor-rates , but a man .

      Untitled Article

      THE GOVERNMENTAL DEPARTMENTS . I . —The Phivy Council ,. According to the original constitution of the British monarchy , as Mr . Ilallam observes , the King had bis Privy Council , composed of the great officers of state and of such others as he chose to summon to it , bound by an oath of fidelity and secrecy , their duty being to discuss and determine all matters of weight relating to both internal and foreign policy . From this body , few in number originally but increased from time to time , the Sovereign selected his more confidential advisers , known as the " Caihnkt Council , " although * was not till the time of William III . that the distinction of the Cabinet , from the Privy Council , and the exclusion of the , latter from the ordinary business of state , became an established thing . 1 . Till ! CAII 1 NKT . This , strictly speaking , is neither more nor less than a unction of the Privy Council , charged wit u the Kxeeutive ( Jovernment , the members ol wlncli are called " Advisers of the Crown , " or " Ministers of the Crown , " and the chief of whom is cnUeU the " Premier , " or the " Prime Minister . " H « competent ; to whoever is charged with the coining of the administration by the Sovereign , to put ^

      many persons as he pleases into the Cabmot , liimself generally filling the office of First Lord of the Treasury , with which has sometimes been m " that of Chancellor of the Exchequer , mul ais Warden of the Cinque Ports . Then ; have !>«*¦» cases in which the Minister , exercising the laig ^ power an adviser of the Crown , has " (> . " ,. First Lord of the Treasury , or » " »» Ii nally Prime Minister , as in the cast ; of Lord Lhatliai > , who was never 'First Lord of the Treasury- »» was Secretary of State at the t » i" « when the gn . i military successes of the . war wlncli cndwl wiu the peace of I 7 <» : » , were , achieved ; and nlterwai «« . when he formed the ( Joverninent , m I 7 (» o , »»<> » ' only the office of Lord Privy Seal . I Jut « £ instances are rare . Nor docs it necessarily follow —although it io generally the- case—that the itu'B '

      Untitled Article

      1208 &t > e QLtaiie V * [ Saturday .

  • Citation
    • Leader (1850-1860), Dec. 20, 1851, page 1208, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1914/page/12/