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    ltrge numbers pass through it from America ; etery steamer from Cork conveys emigrants for America or Australia to Liverpool . From Waterford , Tipperary , Xerry , Eoscommon , Sligo , Limerick , the cry is the same . " The tide" rolls on in all : the labourers are thinned in number ; labour becomes not only high in price , but absolutely scarce . And these very persons going to America and Australia will be the examples , perhaps the assistants , for others to follow . It is true that her Majesty ' s Commissioners

    notifythat they will only send to some of the Australian colonies labourers under indentures not to return home , and not to leave the settled districts for the diggings under four years , except on repaying a certain portion of their passage-money . But while these conditions couldnever be enforced , we may note that the proportion of labourers sent out by the Commissioners is now become comparatively small . A scavenger from Ireland can send back from America the money to carry out his wife , and numbers who go to Australia do not value the aid of which the Commissioners

    are so stingy . The emigration , then , will go on , and the annual rate of emigration as it has stood for the last five years—306 , 000—will probabl y be exceeded this year as it was last , when it amounted to 367 , 000 . We may set it down , then , that our industrious classes will continue this year to leave the country at the rate of more than a tho " usand a-day . The rate of births is not so great ; but remember , that while the babes newly born to

    us in these latter years will not yet replace the adult labourers who have left the market , neither will they be married , and supply the vacancies in British parentage left by so many of those adult emigrants . We have lost probably nearly a million of parents in these last five years ; so that births are likely enough to diminish . * Here is a decreasing population established , with a prospect of further decrease . Of course , wages must continue to rise ; and the only check to that continuous rise would be such a

    disastrous turn in trade as should oblige the employer to forego a proportion of his business under pain of ruin . That prospect is not yet before us , and we may therefore anticipate a continued rise in wages . Kow , capitalists must provide for that demand ; but how ? B y constantly and proportionatelyincreasing their trade . Let us , in the first instance , suppose that they do so ; and let us glance at the concomitants of such a social condition . Peace , or friendly relations with foreign countries , becomes additionally desirable . War would be no great harm if it only destroyed our rivals , or made other countries idle , leaving to us the trade of purveying for them . But hostilities with some states would be disastrous . America ,

    for instance , might cut off the raw material on which our greedy cotton factory system feeds ; for the Americans can really do things under an indignant imputabof which the tame English could scarcely dream . She , and almost she alone , could harass us on the ocean path . Turkey might be absorbed into Austria , and become protectionist ; or into [ Russia , and become prohibitory—in either case cutting off 3 , 000 , 000 / . of English trade . Our country , in its headlong career of prosperity , therefore , with wages ever treading on the heels of profit , and obliging

    commerce to push forward , needs a strong Government to maintain a firm sagacious foreign policy . Our colonies are becoming daily more democratic . Canada has earned , by persevering rebellion and remonstrance , almost practical independence ; the Cape has made considerable progross in the same direction ; so lias Australia , into which the Americans have begun to pour in increasing numbers ; while anti-British , Irish , and anti-monarchical refugees from Germany , . Franco , Switzerland , and all Europe , aro daily recruiting

    tho republic of the- West . At homo the demand for a strong , sagacious , and generous Government , is not less obvious . Tho labouring classes uro rising to a distinct social importance . Thoir demands arc no longer slighted ; but they arc mot by a considerate attention strikingly ' in contrast with tho inexorable attitude of masters a year back . We do not blaino the masters for the change—God forbid but it is a significant fact . " Strikes , " it in noticod , are , in innumerable cases , like so many

    bankruptcies , " superseded" —never coming before the public at large , because the masters yield . In many cases where the masters stand out , the men succeed . Will this movement be final P Of course not : wages will still advance . But with working classes so decidedly elevated in social condition , with labouring men so much more worshipful , according to the true standard of English £ . s . d ., it will be impossible to keep them down politically . Even if contentment should make them apathetic , conscious wealth will make them proud . And it must be remembered that the workman is now open to two influences , unprecedented in their strength and concurrence : he sees that his brother in

    America or Australia is in full possession of social recognition and political rights ; and lie himself is growing accustomed to see his master yield before Mm . Do we find any symptoms that other classes are alive to this altered state of " the condition of England question" P Yes , in some few , but very few instances . Mostly they are not so . The middle classes are individually becoming aware that they have more wages to pay ; but their most conspicuous representatives have not appeared very active or sincere in aiding the

    movement to extend the franchise to truly national proportions . If they were , we should find the electoral body , which lies principally among the middle class , sending better members to the Parliament . And among those classes which at present furnish and nominate the candidates for Parliamentary seats , do we see the slightest proof that they know the magnitude of the interests in their charge , the character of the dangers that now menace those interests ? In the People ' s

    House , as it is called , there is the same pleasant chit-chat called debates , about the comparative merits of the ins and outs , about the safety of giving the franchise to this or that class marked out as possessing property , about raising rates to help sectarian education , about some paltry " concession" or other , not intended to reach the true working class , but , by virtue of a " compromise , " to halt between total refusal and full assent . Honourable Members and noble Peers

    go on chatting about colonies , and commerce , and constitution , as if our colonies were not gradually getting loose , as if labour were not abandoning commerce or making new terms with it , and as if " constitutions" could stand before a rich working class , after that class should really know its power , grow accustomed to victory , awake to the insult of having its plainest demands refused as a matter of course , and should discover that those classes which are self-appointed to rule it , really cannot adapt themselves to conduct public business under the altered circumstances of the day .

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    THE CONDITION OF EUROPE QUESTION . How are all the irritations in Europe to bo assuaged P That is a question scarcely less important for tho real lovers of freedom and peace , than tho one about wages . Tlio more you survey tho living map of Europo just at present , the more impossible it seems to conceive an answer to the question . We might make no account of an " affair" in this or that part , however serious an " Eastorn question , " or a " Swiss question" might be , as Schleswig questions and Polish questions have been ; however nations might be expunged in 1853 as coolly as they have been in 1815 , or an 3 > - subsequent year , the pang might be endured . Tho difficulty is to know liow it is all to bo managed at once , and also to understand how , if tho winning sid <; in the present contest should continue to win , any one State that does not belong to the system of absolute government can maintain its independence , or its internal freedom . We do not believe it can . Perhaps the reader may share our apprehensions if he will follow our survey .

    We all know thai ; on the (> th of Februaryptwo months ago , there was an insurrection in Milan , " tho work of isolated ami miserable brigands , " said Austrian authorities ; but now Austria mulcts all . classes in Italy ; accuses tho highest born of complicity , confiscates their property , —confiscates the property of naturalized Piedmontese subjects , ana charges tho Piednumteso Government itself with abetting . Tho bearing of Austria towards Piedmont , is such as threatens to end either in the servilo submission of Piedmont , or in some act of violence- on tho part of Austria . Austria is maintaining a hostile

    correspondence with the Government of Switzerland on the unsustained charge that the Canton of Ticino had voluntarily made itself the fulcrum for the movement in L / ombardy ; the canton is exasperated by the repulsion of Ticinese expelled from IJombardy ; and the federal Government is threatened with armed hostilities . Hungary , under a military occupation by Austria , is torn by robbers of the Uobin Hood class , who are winked at by the quiet people of the country . Prague has been the scene of very severe punishments of youthful students , accused of expressing sympathy for Kossuth—Prague , the capital of

    that Sclavonian kingdom which has taken many opportunities of expressing its hatred for Austria . The Prussian King , not long since dissenting from the violent demeanour of Austria , has lately discovered a conspiracy in Berlin , and his Government are making arrests at the rate of eighty-six in two days — the prisoners being charged with high treason , and being persons of respectability . Gervinus , the inflexible historian , is persecuted at Mannheim . Domiciliary visits , at the demand of Austria , arc enforced at JNTuremberg to seize tobacco packets ornamented with portraits of Kossuth and Mazzini . Tlie Government of Hanover is

    contending with working men , whose meetings are suppressed , their notices being adorned by portraits of Robert Blum , the martyr in the Viennese revolution of 1848 . At Mecklenburg one merchant is arrested , and in the factory of another a quantity of grenades are found . In Naples the Government is alarmed at the sight of a wide-awake , which the soldiers tear from the heads of the people and destroy ; and in Palermo the body of a Swiss guard is discovered

    with a dagger in Ins breast , laoelled " tlie revenge of Mazzini , " a billet put there perhaps by an unauthorised admirer , or possibly by some agent of the police . In every part of Gcrmscny , Austria , Switzerland , and Italy , there are the signs of violent and arbitrary conduct on the part of the Government ; of secret conspiracy on the part of the people—a conspiracy explained by the impolitic cruelties of the authorities .

    By the very acts of the Governments , therefore , there is throughout the wide extent of Europe which we have indicated , a disposition to insurrection so considerable , that it is only kept down by military force equal to tlie occupation of a conquered country . People and Government are at war—one held down , the other holding down . While such is the general state of tho continent , the isolated " questions" assume a new importance ; and it is interesting to know how they stand . Thoir aspect is not promising for

    peace . First , let us take the Swiss question . The King of Prussia , who had practically abandoned Lia claim to be " Prince of JVeufchatel" in the revolution of 1848 , and has more than once forfeited bis title , is now disposed to reseize it ; and the English Government of Lord Malmesbury ' s time joined in n protocol recognising Ins power to enforce the claim by arms . He thus stands ov er a portion of Switzerland , threatening military occupation . Austria also threatens to inviule Switzerland to enforce her vengeance for

    the assumed misdeed of Ticino in affording a ground for Italian conspirators ; and he will probably occupy the eastern part . Should he do so , political prophets anticipate that France will occupy Genoa , and take her share . The Swiss , however , are specially armed , with their mountain fastnesses and rocky vantage ground ; and they will bo a hard victim to slay outright .

    Next stands tho Ijombanlo-Piedmontese question . Austria confiscates the property of men whom she has permitted to transfer their allegiance to Sardinia ; and then accuses the Sardinian Government- of not acting in good faith . JNot a shadow of proof is advanced ; and tho correspondence only fstablishes the fact , that Austria is desirous of picking a quarrel with Sardinia . Now , as Sardinia has really done nothing to foment Italian revolt , this conduct , on the part of Austria indicates nothing less than a desire to attack Piedmont .

    Lastly , there in tho still unsettled I urkish question . Prince Men / schilcoff in still at Constantinople , and Htill holding back bin real " ultitMiitiiin . " IviiM . siiui oflicers have been directed to disperse themselves throughout Christian Turkey , including Montenogro , Greece , « nd the Greek Archipelago , and one has gone to Broussa—to

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    ? A sot-ofl" agaiiwfc thul ; ciiuho of diminution will ho tho inorontiod ratio of marringos in proportion to Mio actual population , an a consequence ot" prosperity .

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    April 9 , 1853 . ] THE LEADER . 349

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), April 9, 1853, page 349, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1981/page/13/