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    Untitled Article

    to the system of trade , which , is that of cheating and adulteration ; to the railway system , which is that of unpunctuality and accidents ; to the Official system , which is that of neglect of everything which ought to be done ; to the parliamen tary system , which is that of making laws that nobody can obey . There is an incessant tendency on the part of society , of the individual , to rebel against this negative tyranny ; and if it is true that the empire of passion has been once more reinstated by the crowned adventurer of Paris , the fact is the most formidable event that has yet occurred for those legitimate authorities which exist by favour of common-place , of abnegation , of despondent mediocrity .

    whatever may be the ulterior consequence , it is at present plain that Louis Napoleon is a daring knight errant , who perfectly understands his isolated position , accepts it , and is prepared , sword in hand , to wage war with all adversaries . Also , that instead of repudiating the old traditions whieh still survive in the world , and which are , indeed , older and more established than the imperial dynasties now repulsing him , he has allied himself to those which are most thoroughly interwoven with the history of

    Europe . High birth is one : the lady whom he has espoused has a pedigree , and an escutcheon that might grace the noblest lady in the romances of Scuderi . And he has also espoused Beauty , whose reign is more enduring than that of dynasties . By these means he has drawn to his support sympathies not peculiar to any party , or even to any nation , but inherent in human nature ; and however political theorists may doubt the career that lies before him ,

    because they cannot calculate it on the principles of their own arithmetic , it would be possible to render it more brilliant than any which he has yet passed through . A large portion of Louis Napoleon ' s character has , at least , been hidden to the world . Various stories have been circulated respecting his relation to womankind ; but they have been as uncertain as the heroines of them . More appears to be known respecting this , the last lady associated with him , than of any previous one ; and all that is known is favourable . Of course it is

    so ; the most brilliant and engaging colours will naturally he used for the picture , where the incidents are so picturesque , and the character of the lady at least inspires so many glowing romances . She is ^ ndowed with beauty — a supreme advantage * . * Her charms possess that peculiar fascination , which attaches rather than dazzles , and wins rather than commands . All accounts conspire to paint the witchery of her smiles . She has exercised no small amount of

    power over the Emperor already , and is prepared to exercise more . Humour , indeed , spontaneously bestows upon the future Empress of the French the most generous impulses : amnesties , restoration of the Orleans property , and almost a rcdomption of the dark side of the adventurer who has ascended the Imperial throne of France .

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    CONCERT BETWEEN MASTERS AND MEN . We are delighted to see , not only that the working classes in more than one department of trade , are exercising a knowledge of the true constitution of industry , in order to obtain their fair share of tlio existing prosperity : but that they also understand tlieir own position , sufficiently , to take tho very best course towards attaining those rights . Throughout the Coal and Iron Trades they have realized an advance of wages . How far tho same advance lias boon attained in other branches of industry , we are not at this moment tiblo to any ; but we do know , that tho business in which they have tho most generally succeeded in procuring attention to their demands , is oxactly the one in which , on some grounds , excuses might have been pleaded in bar of their claims . Tho Coal Trades of the North lmvo for a long while been in a peculiar position . They

    have boon multiplied to bo great an extent beyond tho natural demand , that they have ' boon , in vory many ciihoh at least , <; arriod on at a loss . Thoso who wore pitying for tho work , wore auBtainod by the hope that a bettor time might come , and that present losses might be compensated by future profits . Sorno coal owners , wo suspect , havo even gone ho far , uh to Hpooulato upon the probability that some of their Jbllowti might bo ruined , and Uiuh driven from tho field , Not a few

    of the pits would then be closed , and the other owners would then reap that share of profit which has been so long denied them . In this operation it became a trial of the length of purses , and with an outlay thus for some years protracted , it would be quite natural to meet a demand for higher wages by a representation of continued loss . It might have been represented , that if the whole of the proprietors were to consult their interests , by closing several of their pits , the workmen would become redundant as respects the coal labour market , and would be unable to command that advance which now they are obtaining . We do not believe , indeed , that

    this would be sound policy . So long as the coal pits are working , the object must be to get out of them the largest possible amount of revenue ; and if the present prosperity of the trade does no more than diminish the loss to the owner , it is so far a gain to them . But their workpeople have as much right to insist upon a share of the prosperity which the owners thus feel in mitigated losses , as they would have to demand a share in prosperity exhibited by more positive profits . The rise , therefore , has been justified by the facts ; - but , a fortiori , if there is a rise in coal wages , there ought to be , at least , a corresponding rise in the wages of industry throughout commerce at large *

    We see that this has not been denied at Nottingham , a town so recently an example of pauperized industry . In some cases there is a demur to the demand of the men , but in most it is expected that the men will obtain that for which they ask . The trade reports , in some degree , describe that which is a novelty ; " The workmen have grounded their requests upon the sound and improved condition of the trade , and having preferred their solicitations in a temperate manner , they have been courteously listened'to . " Both sides have gained by this quiet

    arrangement ; the business of the employer has not been interrupted , and the workman has attained his wish . The working classes are too apt to imagine that a respectful and temperate manner will be regarded as a mark of servility on their part , and they assert their independence by a threatful and offensive demeanour . If they would reflect a little , they would observe that amongst the employing class themselves , a certain respectful courtesy is expected and given ; and they would observe that between man and man , in whatsoever class , a hasty and menacing style always

    provokes a disposition to retort and to refuse . Many of the demands of the working classes have been foiled by the manner in which they have been put forward . Again , the working classes have sometimes pushed their demands , simply because there was an emergency , without regard to the soundness , or the profitable character of the trade then carried on . It is possible , in unfavourable seasons , to have an alternation of loss and of hasty profit , which may place tho employer at the mercy of his hands , although in the long run his books will show a scanty profit . When the working man takes advantage of that awkward state of things , it is he who appears as tho hard and exacting bargainer . It has

    sometimes been so . In tho present instance , however , it cannot be said that tho working classes in any branch of trade have been impatient . They have abstained from pressing their own rights until the whole trade of the country is in a state of great activity and soundness ; and they havo a perfect right now to claim a reasonable share in the solid returns which the employing class has been so largely reaping . In Nottingham they appear to havo put forward their claims in this style and spirit , and , as we havo observed , the consequence is a ready acquiescence . Tho school of adversity is said to be good , but a change to the sohool of prosperity may also have its moral hcalthfulnoss .

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    ¦ pROSl'ECTS OF UNIVERSITY REFORM . Many beneficial consequences seem likely to flow from tho Oxford University eloction , beyond thoso wo have pointed out . Tho whole academical constituency has boon shaken , as with an earthquake , much more effectually by its internal and discordant forces , than it could havo been by any external action . The old crust , political and clerical , has bfcon broken into fragments ; and there has been a concord of discords aliko in the minority and majority . The pure churolunen of any acotion could not chooae the nun they

    preferred ; neither could the pure politicians . The blunder of proposing a man like Mr . Perceval at all , much more of proposing him through the medium of a Denison . lay in the very nature of affairs ; and the choice of Gladstone , who is much more of a statesman than an ecclesiastical or academical representative , " pure and simple , " was also a necessity for the Traetarian party . Of course the Low Church section voted with some of the political High Church parsons , the former that they might flout Mr . Gladstone , and the latter that they might avenge Lord Derby ' s

    defeat . And the University reformers performed a graceful act in voting for Gladstone , and thereby showing that they were not actuated exclusively by resentment at his speech against the Commission , when they stood neutral in July . To "do them justice , it must be stated that _ they looked , and do look , upon that anti-commission speech as levelled not against the particular Commission issued by Lord John Russell , but against anv inquiry : inquiry being , as the more exclusive

    of Mr . Gladstone ' s supporters well know , the indispensable preliminary of any broad reform . And that speech , which was a concession to the illiberal part of the constituency , did its work . It rallied the anti-reformers to Mr . Gladstone ' s banner : and it compelled the reformers to neutrality . They could not overlook it , though they were bound to consider other things as well ; and as it was on general grounds they refused to vote in July , so it was on general grounds that they voted in January .

    Mr . Gladstone , then , had this not wholly valueless contingent of votes—the votes of the Reformers . But there was another section of the constituency ( and this shows how profound are the divisions ) who supported him because they believed that he was opposed to Reform ! We believe the Reform contingent is an increasing force morally and numerically ; and that its opposite is a decreasing force . But how admirably this illustrates the mysterious position of tho sitting member . It is understood that he talks as if he had been moved by the Report ; but that he

    urges his High-Church supporters to do what will tend to strengthen the hands of the University . This may mean that they should bring about , spontaneouslyj internal improvements to stave off the application of reform from without , ov ifc may mean the reverse : fnr it is more than doubtful whether Mr . Gladstone would consent to remove the tests , or to the infusion of a large lay element—above all , of learned lay theologians . Indeed , it is notorious that the Provost of Oriel supported Mr . Gladstone as tho " protector" of

    tho University ; that his London Committee were men of all religious parties , who supported him for his politics , and little else ; and that his Oxford Committee were High Churchmen , who , while they disliked and feared his political course , sustained him as one of themselves . This description of the Gladstone party forms a complement to the accounts we Jiave before given of his opponents ; only , as it appears to us , tho combination of tho latter was , by force of events , flagrant , factious , and unnatural .

    That all is now confusion and discord in tho University , as in the Church—that the old parties are broken up , as in tho Slate—we did not need the evidence of tho election to prove : probably tho public did ; and ho far it is useful service . But tho election has evolved a far more important consequence . The Reformers feel their strength , and are determined to use it . They have drawn the sword , and thrown away the scabbard . Morally their position is doubly strengthened ; and they feel that they ought not to under tamely the obstruetiveness of the antagonist to reform , and the general discredit to ( he University which has followed from this election . They aro strongly inclined to advocate a much more

    strenuous reformation than heretofore , and they see that it is time tho egregious abuses of academical institutions should be put mi end to . They say that it is truo Micro should be m little demolition aB possible ; hit that there will have to be a good deal to make tho institutions of tho Thirteenth century good for the JNinotconth . Without any vulgar lovo of destruction , they simply advocate whatever change is necessary . They have no rovorenoo for Institutions exeent , as they effectually answer their ends—especially when they are institutions which , professedly , the nation is to look to as tho source of truth . In fact , tho most advanced now inmHt that exolupive clerical domination and immoral touts

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    January 29 , 1853 . ] THE LEADER . lo 7

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), Jan. 29, 1853, page 107, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1971/page/11/