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    tion , and as a result , he says : — "I return to this country with a stronger conviction than I had even before I left , on one or two point's . In the jvrst place , I have a stronger feith in the good sense and in the powers for self-government of my fellow-countrymen . " That is , he , a leading member of the fo verning class , has learned a stronger « ondence in the governed than he had before he knew them : and , what is quite as

    important , they have learned a stronger confidence in him . Before he went , we sent out soldiers to keep down the Canadians ; and when he comes away they send back money , and assurances , and an offer of men to put down our enemy . Is it possible to relate a more striking history of happy government than is conveyed in those few words ? Can any theory of divine right , of government by the best , or of democracy , give us a more

    complete result ? The same elements of discord that exist in the American republic , and the same elements of rebellion that formerly existed in Canada or in the Cape , are dormant amongst . ourselves . They are temporarily suspended ^ foy that which alone unites a free people . * ' There is only one way , " says Lord Elgin , " in a republic , in which you can get absolute unity of sentiment , and that is effecting ' hostilities against a , foreign country . A sucof

    cessful General unites the suffrages the whole of the patriotic people . " Probably if we had a successful General now , internal questions would be suspended ; but they would not be supersedes . They would not have arrived at a settlement , as they have in < 3 anada , or the Cape and Australia ; and the first reason is , because the different classes "which are brought together in the colonies , which know each other personally , which learn to confide in each other , to trust

    ineach , other , < to promote each other ' s material interests , to sympathise in each other ' s feelings , and aid in each other ' s elevation of feeling , and even of station , are still divided in this country . Instead of that kind of union which we observe in the colonies , we have all the different classes separated from each other , and intent either upon pulling each other , or keeping each other , down . The aristocracy would keep down th ' e other two ; the middle class would pull down the

    aristocracy , but would keep down the democracy , for the fear of factory burnings and inconvenient votes ; and the " lower orders " would pull down the two above them . The great cause of this hostile feeling is want of personal knowledge , and particularly between the two extremes . If our gentlemen mingled with our working-classes , they would find among those humbler orders exactly the same feelings , that move their own bosoms ; and instead of fear and dislike , they "would , as

    Iiord Elgin" has found in Canada , learn nothing but respect , affection , and sympathy . Vice versd , when working-men acquire a personal knowledge of gentlemen—suxiposing the gentlemen are fair types of their orderinvariably those working-men become greatly conciliated towards the gentlemen , and even towards the political objects for which gentlemen move . And why ? Because the same feelings , instincts , and powers , which resido in the best of the worknig-peoplo , exist also

    in the gentleman , only cultivated to a better utterance , and therefore enlarged to a stronger and more extensive influence . The substance , the stuff of humanity , is exactly the same in both oases . You have only to bring the two classes together to make thorn aware of thls ^ and to make them , feel that each possesses an influence over the other . Such things happen in colonies ; and therefore our wmb morax 11 from Lord Elgin ' s speech is , that colonies ^ wh ere public affai rs are more

    rough and ready , where the governors may know the governed , are better schools for public men than their own country is . . ¦ Lord Elgin wants to , show how far the school he has been studying in , and the discipline to which he has been subjected , are likely to make him a proper and useful servant amongst us . Time will show this . Has speech to the inhabitants of Dunfermline goes far to make us believe that he will be useful , because he understands . But we want something more in this country than mere understanding and government by force

    of reason . In some continental states the whole of the people are governed from one centre ; the Crown becomes " the fountain of all honour , " and the aristocracy is endowed with great power . Its influence carries its ramifications into the body of the people throughout the empire ; and thus , although popular feeling is " kept down , " there is a certain national unity . The nation exists as one , although the Commonwealth is in a feeble state . In the American Republic the Commonwealth exists in its fullest force .

    The multitude is supreme , the sovereign power is literally divided between thirty or forty States . There is no unity , though there may be coincidence of feeling . This perhaps contributes , as a somewhat similar influence contributes amongst ourselves , to enfeeble national feelings , and to set up inferior feelings . Local interests are ^ greater than imperial . Ambition to take a high rank in statemanship is destroyed by the necessity of truckling to local connexions . Energy ,

    denied that path towards distinetion , _ turns to the main chance in trade , to individual wealth , or satiates itself by ruling a united multitude—for the hour . In America the township is supreme , in Europe the capital ; in America the Commonwealth is strong , but threatened with the decay of nationality , which would separate it into feeble

    communities , such as we saw in the earlier Roman Empfre , and in Italy . In Europe the Commonwealth is almost extinguished ; the national feeling is gradually absorbed by the organised administration ; which , forgetting its-origin and . its safety , becomes an incorporation , regardless of national wishes , cruel to its subjects , hated , intolerable , provocative of revolution .

    In our own . country we may be said-to unite the two states of Europe and America , but Dot to combine them . We have governing classes , profiting by the government , and ignoring the governed ; and we have a commonwealth gradually drawing local power to itself , hating aristocracy , but not cultivating any national unity for the subject . We are at once threatened with both kinds of

    extinction—a revolution against the oppressing class—a dissolution of national unity through sheer national indifference . In all classes , we conceive , the want . is the same : it is a want peculiar tf > the polity of modern daysthe want of that personal feeling which is after all the true national nexus between all parts of society . On the Continent military feeling overrules national feeling ; in America local feeling has the same mortal

    effect . " With us , bureaucracy at top , and local or private interests at bottom , have split up the country into cliques and connexions . Perhaps we must wait for some great calamity to restore , in each member of the entire community , a common sympathy and personal feeling for his countrymen and his country ; but if the real nature of this particular evil were rightly understood , and if the spirit of patriotism and chivalry bo not dead ainougat

    us , means mi g ht be found for reviving the life of the nation . We believe that it only wants a spark to be lighted in the right ) lnce .

    REVOLUTION BY THE ARISTOCRACY . How the times alter ! In 1848 the Government feared a revolution—a petty , cabalistic , imaginary revolution of a few artisans . la i 855 the Government itself makes half-adozen revolutions—radical , subversive i universal . On the 10 th of April , seven years ago , Chelsea Pensioners and special constables rushed , to the rescue of the Constitution . In January 1855 , the Cabinet explodes—the Horse Guards is blown up , and the Aristocracy are the insurgents ! jSTo . - ——^— i ^ ¦ * ^^^ r ^ tm ¦ ^^ ^^« ^ - * M .

    Reform Bill , no Charter , no . Repeal of the Corn Laws ever threatened , ever could or would create half the revolution which the Aberdeen Ministry have produced in England . The Lancaster Battery has never pounded Sebastopol as the late Cabinet has pounded our British Institutions . In one week we have had an explosion 1 of all the political orthodoxies together . Whig , Tory , and that inexplicable mixture called " Coalition" politics have submerged amid the general thanksgiving . When heretofore Ministers have been abolished , they have plunged at

    their successors ! In this instance , one . especially , Ralph Osboene , gave a parting kick at the system he had served . Men feel relief that the Whigs are gone for a week at least ; and certainly no man will even acquiesce in a Tory substitute . They who cheered as a party triumph the disasters of the noble wreck of the Crimean Army are as heartless as they are incompetent . There is no error of aristocratic administration by precedent , patronage , * nd family exclusivism , which ; they havey not always supported . The system which has now " broken down they' have ever cherished . It is a motto of the Leader that

    they who resist progress , when progress is . law of all things around , stimulate violent revolution , and ' ' no profession of Conservatism can disguise the destructiveness of routine . What has been so long foretold and so furiously denied , has happened . Your aristocratic Conservative has proved the incendiary of the State . It begins to be perceived that the solid and progressive element

    in the nation , its practical business capacity , is the truesajfegu ^ only element to which future statesmen may look for the maintenance of our renown . Now there is opportunity for the party of the unrepresented to assert itself in Piirliament and in the nation . Say what you will of the democratic sentiment of the populace , it is evident John Bull loves his lords—but lords

    will find that he loves beating his enemy more . Sturdy , incommunicative , and selfwilled as John Bull is , he will yet doff his hat to the aristocracy—but they will find that John Bull must thrash his assailant ; he is patient , he is generous , he will endure a great deal , and lie will pay anything—but he nuiat knock his man down if he is challenged . If the system at the Horso Guards will not do it , he will abolish the system . If Coalition Cabinets canuot do it—lie will smash

    Coalition Cabinets . If the war wants administrative ability , and the aristocracy have uot that ability , they must make way for those who have . John Bull has sent out his navvies , and ho will send out his dustmen if need bo . The soul of the nation is not stuffed with cotton—the brain of the nation is not muddy with precedents—its eye is clear , its pulse lias the throb of a cannon yet . There is a national spirit —and such as will not bo appeased by the timid and tho incompetent , and such as has not been invoked in the snmo way nor to tho samo purpose before

    . During tho long interval of peace no searching opportunity has occurred of comparing the vitality of class with class . Suddenly , however , a strife of nations has occurred , and

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• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), Feb. 10, 1855, page 132, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2077/page/12/