On this page

• Text (2)

  Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.

  • 

    Untitled Article

  • 

    Untitled Article

• Transcript

  • Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.

    Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.

    Untitled Article

    mercialbody are not slightly staked on the success of that rescue , Hence a farseeing intelligence would justify this loan , as well as the ordinary commercials principles which regulate advances to foreign States . . - We might , indeed , draw some credit to Turkey by contrasting her -with other foreign States whose names are more familiar in our market . Spain has shared largely in English advances , with what results we have recently described . An instance has iust occurred of tne peculiar manner in which

    Spain pays her debts . A sum of money is considered to be due to Espartero for long standing arrears , and it was recently determined to pay him 25 , 000 dollars ( 50002 . ) . With regard to the merit of the particular claim we express no opinion , simply remarking that it is admitted by the Spanish Government , and a payment is ordered . The Spanish Government confesses itself bound to pay to Espartero 5000 ? ., and her Majesty signs the order for the purpose . It is to be paid in what is called denda personal del

    tesoro , a species of payment which bears a large discount—in the present case , fifty per cent . Acknowledging itself , therefore , bound to pay Espartero five thousand pounds , the Spanish Government charges him fifty per cent , discount on its own tardy afterthought of honesty . Such is Spanish finance . Shall we take another comparison , from the great empire of Austria , also well known in our market P We recently had occasion to mention

    the financial credit of that State and its hopeless insolvency—with a yearly deficit concealed , but not cured , by yearly loans ; the pressure of which loans is magnified , not prevented , by repeated depreciations of the inconvertible paper money . The Government of Tienna has just issued a new kind of inconvertible paper money ; as if the newness of the paper upon which the obligation is printed could impart some freshness of health to Austrian finance .

    Nay , let us take for comparison with 'the Turkish Government its great rival and enemy , its magnanimous " ally , " the Emperor Nicholas , so powerful and so wealthy ! The Emperor also is known as a borrower in the London market ; having , not many years since , contracted a loan for 5 , 500 , 0002 ., ostensibly to pay for the

    completion of the railway from St . Petersburg to Moscow , but , really , it is understood for meeting the expense of the war in Hungary . By a peculiar contrivance his gracious Majesty , " the God-fearing Emperor , " is converting himself into a creditor of the principality of Wallachia , which enjoys , at the present moment , his special patronage . Wlien the [ Russian armies were introduced into

    the Principalities , Russia announced that tho local Governments would have to furnish supplies for the soldiers , which should be paid for at a rate and at a time to be agreed upon . The resources of Wallachia are not very varied , and consist principally in two branches of revenue—a duty on the corn exported and a duty on tho cattle which are exported , or which pass through the provinces on their way to tho JBlack Sea . Part of this revenue has been checked by tho infamous conduct of the Russian Government in permitting , perhaps designedly , the choking of the Sulina mouth of tho Danube : this

    has prevented tho export of corn . It is partly by tho action of tho Russian Government itself that Wallachia has been unable to comply with tho exactions of that Russian Government . Tho loeal authorities having btoon unable to make good tho wholo of tho supplies tlomandcd , the Emperor keeps a record of thcHO deficiencies , and ho chalks them up as " dabta" duo from Wallachia to Russia . Thus tho supplies oxtorted from Walr

    lachia to an invading army , undor promise of future payment ,, are hooked in the ^ reat Russian ledger aH a debt duo from tho Principalities to tho Emperor . It is a debt like that which tho Uiahop of Horoford owed to Robin Hood , and muy porhaps hereafter constitute- a claim , upon tiro strength , of which tlio Emperor Nicholas may inarch to tho Principality with the jolly purpose of" making it dance to the tune of its own gold . Such is Russian faith in money matters .

    It appears to us that Turkey will stand a com - parison oven with those highly dignified States ; that tho Mahommodan S ultan may not slirinlcfrom the comparison with her moat Christian Majesty of Spain , or liis imperial Majesty of Austria , or with the Czar of allliho lluesias , Jf Mr . Cobdon cannot ; < 50 rry out hia " Crumpling '' projeot in respect to Russia without the assistance ofjBritiah

    onwar-ships , here is an opportunity for the converse process in favour of Turkey . Austria is wanting cash , but it appears to us that , politically as well as commercially , she fails to justify speculation in her " securities . " We agree with . Mr . Cobden in thinking that Russia will want cash at least as much as she did in the Hungarian war , but perhaps British contractors who negotiated that advance in London will have adopted Mr . Cobden ' s view as to the statesmanship andmorale of loans to iniquitous Powers . Turkey wants some aid in

    present means , and commercial principles , as well as political morals , and the interest of our country , justify this aid , not less than that which Ministers are prepared to lend . Here then is an opportunity for the Liberal Member for the City of London to show that the house of Rothschild , and all its treasuries , are not at the service of the Absolutist Powers alone , but that the great financial and Cosmopolitan family can use their resources on behalf of those principles which the Baron professes to represent in Parliament by favour of the London constituency .

    Untitled Article

    ME . COBDEN AT BARNSLEY . We have been so often brought into collision with Mr . Cobden on great public questions , that it is a pleasure to ineet with words of his in which we can , for the most part , express a hearty concurrence . Such is the address he has just delivered to the mechanics and middle-class men of Barnsley , on the re-opening of the Institute in that manufacturing town ; an address free from those disfigurements of self-sufficient assertion in which the most strenuous champion of the Peace Society is so apt to indulge . In scenes like this at Barnsley , and upon topics of domestic improvement and social amelioration , Mr . Cobden is most happily and completely at home . His clear , crisp , wedgelike faculty of exposition , with a full grasp of the subject at hand in all its bearings and details , and his tone of easy candour and conversational simplicity , lend a charm to persuasion , while the hardy concision of his language strikes his audience with the force of a demonstration , and tbe illustrations lie gr < mpa around a subject which ordinary speakers treat with a repulsive dryness , assign to him a position as a popular teacher far above that Cobden who denounces

    conscientious opponents as fools , when he is himself pugnaciously dictating terms of peace to all the world . Mr . Cobden won his original reputation for unadorned eloquence by those lucid and compact expositions , those homely illustrations , those pointed arguments ad , erumenam which made an Epic of the corn-law agitation . He achieved a considerable name ; but when his object was gained , when the free-trade and Richard Cobden had received the crowning testimony from the statesman who converted an agitation into a policy , tho Leaeruer ' s reputation

    waned almost as rapidly as it rose . How was this P Simply because the man ' s mind was one essentially of limited capacity ; a mind tenacious of one subject when that subject is sharply defined ; prompt in exposition of that subject , ample and felicitous in illustration ; but a mind ostentatiously incapable of comprehending large questions of social and national polity when their relations are intricate and extended , and when they deal with the grander emotions and passions of men . Thus the Corn-Law question Mr . Cobden thoroughly mastered , and effectively

    expounded . But the Corn-Law question was comparatively a small matter , and tho principles of froe-trado lay ready to his hand . Unrestricted competition was effected by negative legislation ; commerce- was set free- to do as it would with itw own ; it was not subjected to tho guidance of a grand policy . Since 1846 , the year of Mr . Cobden's triumph , ho has turned his mind to many subjects , prominently to what is called tho peace question , involving that of international relations . Now , theso questions require the most cbmprolronHivo treatment—treatment not dictated by

    profit and loss , and more material gain , but treatment which should bo based on a knowledge of human nature , not only on its economical , or what for tho moment may bo called its cotton side , but eminently on its emotional side . They aro complicated questions . Groat Britain alono is not concerned in their solution . Tho idea of honour enters asanolpmont ; tho idea of national sovorpignty enters as an element . To doal with such questiqns as war and peace and international relations requires a mind accustomed to tako vaflt . Burveys not only of historical fuel ; , but of

    the geography of human ideas , feelings , passions , and aspirations . Whatever knowledge Mr , Cobden sets himself to acquire , he acquires . But it is an old saying that a man only sees th > t which he brings his eyes to see ; in other vror&a , a man only sees that meaning in facts which it is within the limits of his capacity to see . One man looka at a drop of water with the naked eye , and hd sees a lucid sphere ; another man looks at the same drop of water with a microscope , and he sees a globe of water full of life . So it is with

    history , past or present . One man sees the simple fact , or series of facts , which constitute an event ; another man sees those facts full of life , and discerns their distant consequences and their more remote relations . It is this limitedness of vision , this power of only seeing one thing at a time , this want of krge vie ^ vs on the life-arid * death struggles of empires , which has made the views of Mr . Cobden so often narrow and

    unsound , and , not to speak it offensively , untrue He has no imagination . How different is it when Mr . Cobden takes up a local topic of essential import , but limited , easily grasped , and made plain to his hand . Then he is genial , instructive , sound . Then he forgets or lays aside those affectations of superior intelligence , those accents of dictation ; that irritating

    vulearitjr of manner and matter , which , although , leavened with truth , offends good tastevand delays the triumph of his cause . At Barnsley , for in * stance , Mr . Cobden lad a topic—the evils of ignorance—which no public speaker can handle better . We are made to feel grateful to Mr . Cobden for his persevering efforts in the cause of education ; and the wish rises unbidden in the

    mmd , that he would confine his energies to so practicable a field . Mr . Cobden speaks with almost paternal affection , with almost apostolic fervour on this theme . He warns , instructs , exhorts , in the kindest manner . He rises above party , above Manchester , when he domes ! to education . "I don't care , " he exclaims ^ " through what it comes . Give me voluntary education , or State "education , but education I want . " Statistics showing the number of people who attend schools , arc no evidences against his senses . The people are not being educated , that

    he sees clearly . " Only yesterday" a Manchester merchant had told him , that he had attended at the swearing in of militia men , and found that not one-half could read , and one-third write their names . Last week " an old friend , " attending a coroner at a Preston inquest , found that out of thirteen jurymen , only five could write . Mr . Cobden " deliberately" asserts that " in point of school-learning , the English people are the least instructed of any Protestant community in Europe . " As instances of the evils and the prevalence of ignorance , lie pointed to

    sanitaryreform , — " the great mass of the people don't know what the sanitary laws arc "—and therefore they live in filth . Another evil of ignorance is that chronic war of labour and capital , called " strikes . " Mr . Cobden spoke with a generous candour on this point . The ignorance , he mentioned , was not ignorance confined to one party in the dispute . " It is ignorance on both sides . " Neither masters nor men understand tho principles which settle the rate of wages , or there would not be " lock outs" on one side , and " turn outs" on tire other .

    Then , America is bettor educated than England . A commissioner of our government has come over with an official report in his pocket , showing that tho artisans or tho United States are not only smart , , but instructed ; and Mr . Cobdon tolls us that ; Manchester is in alarm , lost smart and instructed Ynnlceedom should boat us in the race- of nations . Why , ho asks , is a young country like America bettor educated than an old country like England P Because , ho replies , fchore is soino fault in tlio old one . Why can't wo adopt thoir plan if it be . bettor than ours F

    Wo < lo not in tlio least wish to qualify coinmondation of Mr . Cobdon \ s speech . It is a good and useful Hpeoch—so far an it goes . But oven on ibis question of education , Mr . Cobdon ' s peculiar philosophy and lifo-rulo of profit and loss , nogativoly vitiates the gononil excellcnco of his speech . Why man Hhould be instructed and olovatod occurs to him only in one form . No-Vhoro aro wo told to got knowledge because it is our duty to clovolop to tho uttermost every faculty of doing , every capacity for apprehending , for fuiflorinff , every power within us by which wo uro enabled to do our duty in our state

    Untitled Article

    October 29 , 1853 . ] THE LEADER . 1045

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), Oct. 29, 1853, page 1045, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2010/page/13/