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Leader (1850-1860), 5th February 1853, Edition 1 of 1, Page 132, Untitled Article

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      Untitled Article

      TO READERS AND CORRESPONDENTS . It is impossible to acknowledge the mass of letters wo receive , Their insertion is often delayed , owing to a press ot matter ; and when omitted , it is frequently from reasons quite independent of the mer its of the communication . _^^ No notice can be taken of anonymous communications . Wnat ever is intended for insertion must be authenticated by the name and address of the writer ; not necessarily for publication , but as a guarantee of his good faith . We cannot undertake to return rejected communications . All letters for the Editor should be addressed to 10 , Wellingtonstreet , Strand , London .

      Untitled Article

      A WARNING TO MINISTERS . Amidst the unusual quiet of the recess which has preceded the assembling of Parliament , and the general absence of anything tike a demonstrative popular feeling either for or against Ministers , we have heard certain small whispers , and read certain striking hints , that among the most prominent topics will be the completion of our national defence by a large increase of the standing army . A contemporary has even named the number of the regiments to be raised . At the same time , we have had propositions for establishing sea fencibles favourably noticed and advocated ; and a certain unquestionable activity has pervaded our coast garrisons . The Times one morning grimly hinted that the exertions-, of

      the Peace party to diminish the national safety would soon be set at rest , by resolute measures on the part of the authorities . Mr . Cobden , at Manchester , menacingly paraded his determination to resist any Government proposition to increase our armaments . All this looks vastly like a belief that Ministers intend to propose a decisive measure . But that this measure will be a VOtft for incr *^ - *"» . * "J aa > appretU- ^ it LiilL . l ~ nt , the standing army , we cannot believe . It is incredible ; for it would be a gross political blunder which no Government , in the present state of the public mind , could hope to survive . It is incredible ; for Lord Palmerston is more favourable to a militia than to an addition to our

      standing army ; and neither Lord Hardinge , nor Sir Charles Napier , nor Sir Harry Smith , are indisposed to a purely defensive national militia . Thero are men in the Cabinet sufficiently bureaucratic to approve of mercenary forces ; there is the great Peace party itself flagrantly committed to support a huge standing army , if its defenders be needed : there are the economists , not

      altogether peace men , who also affection hirelings for economical reasons ; there is all this feeling to encourage any Ministry in such unconstitutional innovations . But , until wo see the proposition entered on the notice paper of either Houso , we repeat , wo refuse to believe that Lord Aberdeen will commit so gross a blunder as the raising of twenty , or ten , or even live additional regiments of the line , for national defence .

      For wo do not want troops to carry on an aggressive war , nor for the xiso of our allies , unless , perhaps , Belgium should need a helping hand . Wo want troops , soldiers of some oilicicnt kind made out of the people themselves , and remaining of the people , for strictly defensive purposes . The inconsequent clamour of the commercial and manufacturing classes for a largo standing army ia oho of the ugliest signs of incipient degeneracy ; and on tho strength of this cry alono could Jjord Aberdeen vonturo on the course ascribed to

      him . It is true there are gathering storms everywhere , and accumulations of gigantic forces , numerical and substantial in every way , such as the world has seldom witnessed ; and it will not do for England , who has to hold so much , to be unpruparod with hor contingent . If there ia to bo a war-feast or a lovo-feast of nations , wo must bo thero . Strife cannot , break out anywhoro without touching Britinh interests ; and our commerce dainngml , who would bo the first to shriek for protection from the guns of the Fleet or tho bayonets of tho LiuoP The Peace party . They

      would go to war about a tariff , or to convert new customers to belief in cotton , to-morrow . Nevertheless , all we ask for now is an adequate Home force for defence—sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof . At this moment it is England that requires sentries ; not Malta or the West Indies . In other respects , Ministers are favoured . There is no vehement criticism on them personally , no violent expectations roused politically . They have , what is so often demanded , " a free stageand no favour "—the most advantageous ,

      , and , at the same ' time , responsible position lor any party . They have , besides , -an unequalled opportunity of doing the state some service , and of quietly carrying those parliamentary educational , and fiscal reforms which are , or ought to be , so well matured . We are prosperous now ; it is for them to provide against the chances of distress . The people are quiet , not discontented , freed from the pest of demae-oo-ues : it is for the Ministry to remedy the

      grievances the people have not forgotten , and have force enough to make felt at the right time . Day by day the nation is getting stronger and classes are waning in influence . Let Ministers take their cue from that fact , and give us national legislation . It is but once in half a century that such an opportunity as the present occurs in the life of a people—so much to do , such men to do it , so unanimous a contentment , and so tranquil an expectation . It would be a disgraceful blunder , then , if , misled by commercial cries , Lord Aberdeen should deeply wound the noblest feelings of the nation , and utterly mar his opportunity , by proposing a large addition to the standing army .

      Untitled Article

      MR . COBDEN AND THE PEACE MOVEMENT . "No movement , " say some , " no theory or scheme is worth more than the mind of the best man among those who propound it or hold by it . The measure of the intellect of the best man connected with a movement is the measure of the value of the movement itself . The height of a crowd is the height of the tallest man in it ; and no mere addition of numbers to a party can raise the intrinsic importance of what the party aspires to above the point already marked on what may be called its highest vertical column . " Others , howeverdjgnxJhia . "Thepdditiion . af- ^ u ^^ rij . "

      , they say , " increases not only the chances of a movement , but also its theoretical claims—and that in a higher than the mere arithmetical ratio . " When a prophet makes one proselyte , his creed or crotchet has not merely doubled the amount of its support ; it has actually itself become a new thing , and acquired a higher potency . In becoming common to two minds , it has passed that stage at which you can measure its full value by separately appreciating either . And so ,

      more visibly and undeniably , when the creed extends farther still and becomes the diffusive property of large masses of people . A body of men is something higher than a mere arithmetical aggregate of bo many individuals ; its opinions and wishes acquire a now significance , and a right beyond that which , in the scale of intellect , would be assigned to individual expositions of them . Providence works by masses and majorities ; and an aggregate of fools may be tho organ and advanced army of a thought to Avluch Providcnco attaches greater importance

      than to the firmest conclusion of one wise man . Ono cannot help being bothered with such thoughts , when ono looks at the Peace movement . When we speak of tho Peace movement , however , we moan tho real Peace- people , tho Manchester men , Messrs . Cobden and Bright , and tho men whom their own hearts acknowledge as followers . Such is the fallaciousness of words ,

      such tho cowardliness of men in trying to como as near as they can to what is getting momentary applause , and hucIi the laxity of party-leaders in admitting all and sundry who choose to como tinder their banner on great gathering days , that hundreds put on tho Peace cockade for a week or two who aro not Peace people at all . What on earth has lOinilo < le Ginmlin to do with a peace

      movornent , in tho Manchester sense of tho thingr What on earth have many of those to do with it who attended tho late Poaco Congress , and let theirnJunosboUBedinassociationwituitP Ofcourso I desire peace , but , &c . & , o . " Such is tho kind of phraseology with which wo all think it necessary to prelude our argumentations with Peace people who aro more peace-pugnacious than ourselves . We are poor cowards for our pains . What , is the

      use of that preliminary ? Let us give it up . Everybody desires peace , except when he thinks it necessary there should be war ; and the wnoie question is as to when one thinks there t * sucn a necessity . One result of this shilly-shallying is that hundreds of the " of course I desire peacebut" kind of people get mixed up and confused with the real Simon Pures ; and when the Simon

      Pures are making a show of numbers , they do not object to this . But here we deal with the real peace people—the people who never add the but ; who never saw , never see , and never will see the necessity for war ; who laugh at all waralarms , despise all war-adventures , call soldiers " butchers , " " humbug , " and see in past history nothing but a file of lists of the " killed and wounded . " Now , of such people we have no

      hesitation in saying that they are , as a mass , most poor and miserable creatures intellectually . They are almoat all . second-rate men of the last generation ; the ablest men of that generation , and all the men of the present , are against them . Your Charles Sumners , your Elihu Burritts , and the like , are respectable men enough , but , by no test , will you make them out very magnificent nersonae-es intellectually . According to a not very

      high standard , they write ill , speak ill , and think superficially ; they have no depth , no philosophy , no generality ; what they write aboiit the past with their " butcheries" and lists of " killed and wounded , " is , however , popular , poor stuff . And yet these men are about the best of the Peacepeople . One of the best of them all ( not professedly a Quaker )—the tallest man in the crowd —is undoubtedly Mr . Cobden . Now , Mr . Cobden is a superior man . Tried by even a high test , Mr . Cobden is a man of strength and mark ; sound , strong , hard-headed , honest , —he is a man deservedlv conspicuous even among the able men of our

      day . The pamphlet which he has just published is calculated ( historical inaccuracies apart ) even to raise his reputation . It is , as a literary production , well-written , close , compact , and substantial ; about as good , we should say , as a large proportion of the leading articles in the Times , —and that is no mean praise . There are also touches in it , here and there , which show a higher intellectual point of view , even on the Peace-question , than is occupied by the Sumners and Burritt f > with their " soldiers nothing but butchers , " their : war-nothing bat humbug , " and . their " history nothing but lists of killed and wounded . " For hia position as a chief of the Peace-movement ,

      Mr . Cobden , we should say , is a man of as much intellectual generality as could be expected . We can conceive only one Peace-advocate of a higher species , and that would be a Quaker standing on the principle of his creed , — the Yea and Nay" principle , —not mincing away that principle , and hedging it in with exceptions , but affirming it universally , making it prevail in all cases , and pouring it like oil on tho social chaos . There might be a man of this stamp , who should be an intellectual giant . As it is , however , Mr . Cobden is perhaps the beBt man , intellectually , connected with the Peace-movement .

      Yet there are , undoubtedly , greater and wiser men among us than Mr . Cobden , and these , too , not only not members of the Peace movement , but severe critics of it , and , eo far as immediate activity is concerned , rather disposed to join a war movement . It is , we repeat , a fact indisputable , that tho abler mon . of the last generation , and all the men of tho newest generation , all tho young men , stand intellectually out of tho Peace movement . The question , then , is—On what principle are we to test tho value of this movement—its historical ohgnces and likelihoods

      —whether on the " tallest man in the crowd ' principle , or on tho principle that qualification in social niatterH may make up for inferiority of quality P In tho one case , tho Peace movement will fleorn but a temporary product of elderly men who aro drifting to their graves , and who will take i it to their coffins with thorn ; in the other , it will seem a real historical augury , a hint of what is to be , a proposal ^ all the more worthy of philosophic attention , that it conies not from tho mouth of any solitary sago , but from tho mouths of what might at first appear a largo drove of animals of the kind that wore inspired to teach Balaam . For our part , wo are eclectics in such cases . Wo believe both in tho " tallest man in the crowd" principle , and also in tho principle of tho increase of tho respectability of a belief by the more quantification of the believing substance .

      Untitled Article

      i , 00 THE LEADER . [ Saturday ,

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      Untitled Article

      SATUBDAY , FEBBUABY 5 , 1853 .

      Ifinhlit Mflirs.

      Ifinhlit Mflirs .

      Untitled Article

      There is nothing so revolutionary , because there is nothing so unnatural and convulsive , as the strain to keep things fixed when all the world is by the very law of its creation in eternal progress . — De . Abnokd .

  • Citation
    • Leader (1850-1860), Feb. 5, 1853, page 132, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1972/page/12/