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    Untitled Article

    tion of the army , indeed , is at home ; but it is quite distinct , not to say alienated , from the people . The means which would be necessary to put it in a state of thorough efficiency are begrudged . The money for fortifications which ought to be complete is doled out from hands whose faith lies in submission rather than in resistance . And instead of being supported by the sympathy and affection of the whole people , the army is viewed with a morbid indignation and dislike . The people , which ought to take a share in its own defence , has been utterly debarred from the use of arms by special laws for that

    purpose , which have considered the convenience of officials in " keeping down the people , " rather than the ultimate danger to a State whose population have been habituated to be " kept down "to be cowed by the policeman . It is not to be expected that England , with cramped limbs , should be able to rise suddenly against the invader . Alarm at our defenceless state indeed lias been expressed , and has been so far recognized as to make our rulers set up the skeleton of a militia—at present untrained , paltry in numbers , and capable of no effect except that of impersonating the fear that originated the force , without fulfilling any means of defence .

    But more than all this , the country remains wholly without any national feeling . If a national feeling is to be found , it must be sought , we believe , in the army and the navy ; where something of the kind may survive . But the great body of the people consists of nothing but separated classes , thinking of their own class interests , disliking and distrusting each other , distrusting the Government , and regarding " The Country" as an antiquated abstraction which sensible men sneer at , but never talk about—except in after-dinner oratory on public occasions .

    Unlike Louis JNTapoleon , our rulers have purposely abstained from showing England to herself , or from displaying before England the power which she possesses to vindicate her position in the world . If they were invited to do so , they would say that military pageants would draw men from " the business of daily life "from the avocations of industry ; and that they had better remain in the shop . It is not by shops alone , however , that States arc defended against the invader .

    Enfeebled as the country is by the apathy and misgovernment of its rulers , we believe there is now abroad such sufficient sense of that humiliating condition , that the first step towards a better state would bo responded to at once . We believe that an appeal made to the nation , in the name of the nation , over the heads of the petty factions that obstruct public councils without deciding them , would bo answered at once in the voice of the whole people ; and that if Kngland again were called to rise to sustain the ihur of St .

    George against the world , England would rise . But the call must be made by statesmen who are not afraid to see a great nation stand up in its might .

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    Tiru i : n ( Jlisii working tantalus . Goon mutton , and plenty of it , is to he had by any man who ran put his hand to work ; also much besides good mutton—a tolerably comfortable lodging , excellent , bottled porter , line fruits , and a . variety of p leasant , tilings ; not , in very regular supply , perhaps—except the mutton -but , in great plenty . Prices are high ; but , the working man lias plenty of gold in lii . s pocket , and his fare : i , s " regardless of expense . "

    Of course " , we are not spen . king ol any place in England . . In this favoured country the working man by no means enjoys thai , sumptuous existence . If he wants to get through life with a relish lie must go toother lands , lie might have it , here , indeed , without much diilirully , if he were not prevented . 1 ' ut there- arc special preventions . |< Yce-lrade has shown what may hi " done in placing the material resources ol other countries at the . service of the ICngliKlnnn . ii , how-< -ver liunible ; and much more might be done in that direction , if the working man had sufficient inlluenee over the councils ol" the nation . lie has bread and sugar in considerable abundance , and he might have his tea at very moderate cost ; but the tax-gatherer steps in .

    A considerable proportion of M » e working classes , with hoiuo of the other clauses , once bad u desire to drink lea , without paying an enormous tax upon every cup ; but Mien they had to get up a Huccessful rebellion , and to be

    separated from England , for the purpose . That was in the United States of America . The working man might have his wine . 1 here is a large tract of wine-groAving country in Portugal , altogether beyond , the tracts which supply our markets at present ; the wine-producing capacity of Spain has never been put really to the test for the market ; France , Germany , and even Hungary might furnish of wines

    us , and Italy produces a variety , most agreeable in flavour , which are practically excluded , and which might be produced to any amount . What is it that excludes them V The high duty , which amounts to 300 per cent , on the cheapest of the wines usually imported , and a great deal more on the wines which we have mentioned . With even a moderate duty , wine of excellent quality and taste might be sold in this country at a shilling a bottle , or less . The reduced duty would promote consumption , and the revenue would rise . " Every fool knows that ; " but there-is not a fool in office wise enough to begin ! The working classes might insist upon a better attention to their comforts ; but they are without

    political influence to enforce attention . If they want to acquire political influence they must go to the United States , be naturalized , and straightway they become important . These things , and many others , including the political influence , which the working man might have at home , he is obliged to seek in distant lands . The most smiling corner of the world at this moment unquestionably is Australia . It is at the gold diggings that so much good mutton is to be had , with plenty of gold to buy it . The accounts brought by the last overland mail , on Saturday , give a picture of comfort in

    Australia for the working man , surpassing all previous conceptions . He receives an unwonted attention . To supply him with mutton , the great staple trade of wool in Victoria is , in great part at least , suspended : the sheep are slaughtered for their flesh ; the fat , which used to be boiled into tallow , is now destroyed ; the wool is treated by a process nob less summary—it is burned . The province of South Australia , close by , rests its hopes of future prosperity , in great part , upon the trade for supplying the golddiggers , so large a proportion of whom belong to the labouring classes . It is calculated that not less than a million sterling of unused gold

    remained in possession of labouring men , among the 50 , 000 gold-diggers at Mount Alexander , who do not care to press it upon the market . Of course these men live well , and they will live still better . With plenty of gold in their pockets , they are treated like travelling princes . Although they have so much cash , and food in such abundance , they have little in the way of taxes to pay . It is a realized Utopia for any man who can work . There can bo no wonder , therefore , that the

    Englishman atru » gles to reach that land . lhere are , indeed , obstacles . Although the colonies send back money for the free transmission of emigrants , the official machinery at home is so much too small for its purpose , that it . cannot get through the work with decent activity , and many an emigrant who might go is > kept at home by the tedious routine of the " Hoard . " Still many surmount those obstacles , even at a certain sacrifice . We are not surprised to hear that Home of the assistants in n great linendraper ' s establishment have emigrated , and ( bat , to procure the means of being oil " , they had withdrawn their investments from Huildin ' g Societies . Such persons

    are , no doubt , amongst the more provident , and might have looked forward to a comparatively comfortable life hereafter , even in England ; but at the best it would be a , life of uncertainty and difficulty : in Australia it is neither—it is present comfort " and future hope . The more rapid colonization of Australia , indeed , would benefit those remaining at home , by promoting a . much greater activity oi" trade ; but I he still ' and slow machinery of tlio ' Coloniy . in ^ Office obstructs even that indirect , benelit . So I ho best thing that industrious men can do , if they can scrape together the wherewithal , is to go to Australia , and t ^ njoy on the spot the plenty of tbo land .

    We regret that , it should be so , and unquestionably it , needs not be ho . The working man might fiave his share of plenty in Iwh motherland , his share of political influence , his relish of life : if those conditions were vouchsafed to him , ho might retrain onco more liitt love ol" country ,

    his affection for " merry old England . " In tho meanwhile there is a severe use in fixing his regard upon those fields which , without takinohim from his home , mir / Jit yield him such ric £ fruits , if he were not debarred from them by the indifferentism or incompetency of the statesman , class . .

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    THE " DAILY NEWS" FOR WAR . Oun contemporary , the Daily News , has in general made itself conspicuous for adhering to that better part of valour in politics which might p lease the trading classes , and at least do no harm . We are therefore surprised to find it permanently urging a policy which , if it could have any effect at all , must array tliis country against its natural ally , and proposing that monstrous enterprise on behalf of a cause which would really be the greatest sufferer by the disaster . With all respect for the noble earnestness and ability of the pen recommending this policy , we should hold it to be a dereliction of duty if we neglected to raise our voice against & course so injurious to our country , so fatal to the cause in question , and so unjust to America . The Daily News virtuall y incites the English . Government to interfere in Cuba to uphold Spanish rights in that island against the United States , and to do this on behalf of negro emancipation ! To justify this extraordinary proposal , our contemporary makes a severe attack , not only upon , the slave-holding states , but upon the

    -worc-slaveholding states of America ; and in vindication of truth , Jays before the English reader a representation , not of the facts as they exist relatively to other facts , but of a bias and of selected facts . For example , to serve a particular purpose , Mr . Benton states that within the last thirty years the area of slavery has been doubled in the United States by the addition of territory to old states , and of a few new states ; but for complete truth , we ought to have been told at the same time how much more has been added to the free

    states . It is true that the slave-holding part of the Union has been enabled in some degree to extend its territory , but at the same time the whole Union has been extended in a very much larger proportion , so that relatively tke slaveholding portion of the Union has actually diminished . Even that fact does not tell the whole truth . Free-soil opinions have succeeded in defending the newest states against slavery . of

    Yet , again , cventhat is not all . Independently organized Abolitionism , or the more philosophical Free-soil doctrine , there exists in the younger mind of America a very definite conclusion on the subject of slavery . The Daily News forcibly censures " the agonizing Fugitive Slave-law , and a correspondent of our own , Mr . Joscpli Barker , whose communications we should nayo inserted with pleasure on almost any other subject , makes the same mischievous mistake m selecting the Fugitive Slave-law from its context , and holding it up to censure ; but , in fact , the sol of measures which comprise that law , < :

    onstituMupon the Statute Book of the Union an emp hatic record of the newly-awakened opinion to uJiu-u we have alluded . Mr . Barker virulently attacks Henry Clay , as the Author of that Fugitive blavchiw ; but there must be either i gnorance ( "lie c we cannot suspect dishonesty ) or the l > mb m - nes . s of prejudice , in a view which can thus li t ¦ a professedly transitional " compromise wiw > " ' reference to its history . It is well known tlu Henry Clay entertained an op inion a < rv < 'i »« ¦ the continuance of shivery ; that he had ( bstnui . y -. wnivli-il Mu > niiinion . that slavery should l > c p >

    specfively extinguished ; and in the i . im »« ' ' ho induced the states at largo to < leli » o U . " actual position , ho as to put a restriction upon y real extension of slavery . The « oi .. »*;«^« treated slavery somewhat as a warty "; X (! lt > t Vj : is treated when a silken string is tied ™"""" In thai question , Henry ^ "V'TllCsHrsnioii his time ; but Jiis idea , has taken lull l ) OHH ^ | of the young American mnul J !' 0 H 1 ) ^ . ;; n the question of slavery m settled ; l ) 111 ' ( illl ( , will accomplish the settlement at 'j *' " ' [„ ' | l 0 and in her own way , and she wi I » j > '' , (] l 0 more peaceably , the more effectually , an <

    Hooner , if she he led alone . ,,,. | ialel ( - Slave-holding crotchets are onl y a p >" ¦¦ . ^ menl , in the movement towards ' \ " ;/ w « dictated by much larger impulses . . ; ' , j , () believe , most especially the <> v . « « ' « ; J ^ fo aii , national supremacy by territorial piopuM

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    1016 THE LEADER . [ Saturday ,

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), Oct. 23, 1852, page 1016, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1957/page/12/