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    will struggle long to resist ; the resistance probably conducing to a complicated war . It has now , therefore , become a very real consideration for tax-payers whether they can continue to pay cash down for the luxury of defending civilisation- Our ally , Louis Napoleon , who had different intentions from those of our Government , and who accordingly at

    once adopted a diflerent system or finance , has raised a loan to carry on the war : and the French nation , who think that posterity would not object to sharing in the expenses of preserving a civilisation , from whicli posterity will perhaps derive the greatest advantage , appears to be quite content . " We venture to predict , that Mr . Gladstone also will have to come to a loan . The last war cost us at the

    rate of thirty millions . By the accounts presented to the House of Commons in 1714 it appeared that the expenses of the then war during twelve years amounted to nearly sixty-nine millions , making a yearly average of about five millions and a half . War is much more costly now than it was during either "Wellington's or Marlboroiagh ' s campaigns . We are paying about fifteen millions this year for war before a blow has been struck . Granting that the gallant British people would continue to endure a war in wliich . there was no

    fighting , would they ^ be content to pay as much as fifteen millions a year for the creation of good ¦ appointments " for military and naval younger sons ? The country assuredly would not pay another fifteen millions in another year . Would it not , indeed , be a most effectual method for preventing the English merchants , of whom Lord Palmerston if afraid , from dealing in Russian securities to give them a good , popular , safe English stock ?

    . But there comes the next question , why should the English people pay for the war at all ? According to Lord John ' s statement of the causes and position of the war , there has "been an infamous aggression which we have undertaken to repel . Should not an unjust aggressor be punished as well as repelled ? 3 S ~ othing would be easier than to make the war pay for itself . Hussia lias not to he conquered :

    she is conquered . A , strict blockade would cost us nothing ; it is not more expensive to Lave our ships in the Baltic or Black Seas than to have them at Malta , or in the Tagus , or the Solent , llussia strictly blockaded , which is hardly yet the case , is ' helpless , and no terms ought to bo made until she lias paid not only Turkey hut ourselves for the trouble the two countries have had in

    checking her ambition and destroying her prestige . It is true llussia has no ready money , but she has various provinces that ayo might take as a material guarantee—or hand them back to their rightful owners . If the war is a ( just war there would be no injustice in dealing thus with Ituasia . The common sense of the question is , indeod , so apparent that there would be absolute troachory in our governors

    refusing to make barbarism pay for the defence of civilisation . Nationally—although wo once groatly abused Napoleon for adopting the system hero recommended—wo have no right to bo squeamish in bucIi a matter . Wo made tin -unjust \\\ w on China , and yet il is only throo years since the- lust instalment of Chinese spocio , robboil by us from the " Brother of tho Hun , " rolled nlong tlir strootB of our capital to tho Bank collars .

    One fuel ia obvious in tliu perplexities of Iho present military politicis , that tho C 7 . nr haa not tho elightoBt ; intention of giving in ; and wo must begin to teat ; , in a practical , buBinoBB-hko way , whother tho men who are conducting our ail ' airs uro onrnoufc in the intention to conquer Jtusaia . A real and rapid way of conquoring her would bo to put oruiB in tho hands of hor onemiea : —aomo

    of them would do a great trade with us if they could . Poles , Lithuanians , Cossacks , Circassians , and Siberians would supply us with the requisite armies to march into the heart of her territories : for those armies are in the heart of her territories . Propositions of this nature , however , are premature . Our Ministers are not eager for dynastic revolutions , and are not sure that the fickle English nation will not soon be weary of the war . But there seems very little doubt that our Government is about

    to lend or give money to Turkey . There is a talk about a " Turkish-Sepoy" army , and it will not be questioned that we might rely on the services of a considerable per centage of the population of Asia if we offered good pay and good prospects in . a war against . Russia . This army , it is supposed , will be officered by ^ Englishmen or Frenchmen ; and if a great condottiere were to present liimself , he might pierce to Moscow as several of the Demidoffs did , —not having heard of the impossibilities mentioned on Monday by Mr , Cobden . "With such allies we should have

    something like a real war , and as Kossuth has told us , it is not a real war sending a handful of thirty or forty thousand men to conquer a country of a hundred millions . Our old statesmen , and our old generals and our old admirals , will die off before this war is over , and Nelson and "Wellington will

    appear to ignore Chiefs , and Cabinets , and conceive grand cruises and campaigns . We must already be somewhat out of routine , inasmuch as we get a prospect of this mercenary Eastern army ; and it is not impossible that in good time we may think of defending civilisation by a reaction to the old "barbaric ideas of war . " When William the Norman

    collected the niauvais suyets of the Continent under his banner , he promised them , that if they Conquered , they should have the conquered country ; civilisation certainly benefitting by that rather infamous method of treating Saxon landed proprietors . It is not a real war at all unless Europe is advancing against Hussia to beat her back into Asia , and we think that if her Majesty announced in the London Gazette , that those who conquered might have liussia , there would bo fewer applications for Government appointments , more heroism , and more civilisation in the world .

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    THE NEW CAPE GOVERNOR . Who is Sir George Grey , recently appointed Governor of the Capo of Good Hope ? Ie he one of the fortunate Greys , appointed fox family favour ; or is he one the very best man " that could be selected for tho government of that colony in these new dnys of itis

    constitution ? \\ o may answer lx > th questions in the negative . Ho is not one of tho Greys of llowiek , nor , we believe , is he at all related to them . He is not tho best man that could have boon chosen for tho Cape in those early days of a constitution granted after rebellion . But his appointment is intelligible enough .

    Many years ago thore was an expedition into the interior of Australia , in which Lieutenant Grey and a brother oilioer were tho principal actors ; thoy showed great activity , skill , and courage in traversing that difficult country ; but it so happened that Mr . Groy got tho larger slum ) of tho erodit . Some time after , South Australia was founded by

    intelligent colonials , upon aouud principles , and tho colony therefore bocamo an object of jealousy to tho Colouiiil-olHoe . Having pom * through a Borios of nuttinunngenient by illselected or unlucky governors , tho colony w « b greatly in -want ; of a clever man , and Captain Groy wan appointed Governor . . 11 o managed tho ail airs of tho settlement woll ; did not impress tho colonists with a sonao of hia

    hoa-—^ . pitality , but did impress the Colonial-office with a sense of his subserviency to bureaucratic suggestion , and his skill in softening the unpopularity of bureaucratic rule . The early history of JN " ew Zealand was , in its official part , even more disastrous than that of South Australia ; and after a series of bad Governors there also , clever Sir Georg-e Grey was appointed . He succeeded notably . The colonists were put to some trouble in . their land relations by the totally figmentary nature

    of the native tenure ; constantly baulked by the Colonial-office , and by a local government established in a remote corner of the island , they were , after repeated promises , expecting the constitution , which Sir John Pakington thought he had secured for them , and had sent to them through Sir George Grey . They have discovered that before they could get bold of their complete self-government , they must undergo a probation . Sir George had

    succeeded in setting one part of the colonists against another ,, in cultivating the native tenure until it became a practical obstruction to the sale of land , and in delaying the constitution for fifteen months ; having in the meanwhile destroyed a system of land sale disliked by the Colonial-office , and defeated every independent party , also disliked by the Colonial-office . Finally , having put everything in suspense—land settlement , suprenie court , enforcement of the constitution—he came

    away to visit his native country , and to receive the approval of the Colonial-office ; leaving his successor to arrange matters with the colonists and to pay his political bills . ~ Ko man ever more thoroughly disappointed a colony , or rendered a colony more ridiculously impotent by setting one part of it against another ; no man ever did "better service in that ¦ way to the Colonial-ofB . ce . The natives have been rather troublesome

    in the Cape . They have been in the habit of coming over the border and driving away the herds of the colonists . Under a particular set of treaties suggested by " humane" statesmen , the settlers were forbidden to take the law into their own hands , and the Blacks gaily carried on their game of picking up oxen and sheep upon Tom Tittler ' s gTound—Tom being prevented from following them .

    This principally it was whicli caused the rebellion and re-emigration of the Anglo-Dutch across the border ; those men whose independence has since been recognised . Subsequently Lord Grey resolved that the Cape , which had been guaranteed against the intro * duction of convicts , should , nevertheless , have them ; all classes of tho colony rebelled , and actually refused to hold intercourse with the Government while the convicts remained off

    the coast , and thus they beat the Government . Lord John promised them a constitution ; when Ministers afterwards evaded and delayed fulfilment of the promise , the Capo colonists again grew angry ; and now they have their constitution . But it has cost thia country some millions to put down , by concessions or . military force , tho successive outbreaks of tho natives , the alienations of tho Anglo-Dutoh , and tho open robollion of the British . JN ow Sir Goorgo Groy is sont over with a special oye , we believe , to wheedling tho

    colonials into some greater subserviency to tho Colonial-ollico , and avowodly to manage the natives . This is an ahi « niing admission ; for if ho should attempt to mauago tho natives aa ho Una done tho JS ' ow Hoalandora , by fostering the presumption and hopes of races only too ready 1 u bo presuming and sanguine , ' wo ahull iuivo more border wars , and moro rol ) ullion » , Dutch and Britiah . Or if tfir George ia too clover a man to tamper with colonists that rebel , perhaps other eoloniea nuiy lonrn , from that now form of an old lesrion , " how to treat a troublesome Governor .

    Untitled Article

    J — -- — - . — i -. -- ' ^^^^^•^^^ HMHaHHBBHa ^ HB ^^ H ^ aHOM ¦ ¦ i uly 29 , 1854 . ] THE LEADER . 707 ! ' - - . " ¦ ¦

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), July 29, 1854, page 707, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2049/page/11/