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Leader (1850-1860), 24th March 1855, Edition 1 of 2, Page 280

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      little church which is chapel to the House . And how still more severe must have been the energy evidenced by Mr . Disraeli in his dutiful attendance on Wednesday—when you could see that he was doing bis best , as the leader of his side , to catch Providence ' s eye . It was a picture , a touching picture , to see the pains he took to pray as English Tory gentlemen pray to the God of the Jews . Here and there were consolations for him in the service ; you could see that the eyelashes , carefully drooping over the livid cheek , were now and then raised in pleasant surprise when he found the ceremonial required that an English cTory Protestant gentleman should turn—to the East .

      The discussion on the Tuesday evening was whether the interests of true religion would suffer if the populace were admitted to the national exhibitions on Sunday afternoons ; and the Prayerful Wednesday turned up with appropriateness to illustrate the debate . The East that honourable gentlemen turned to—from the City-road to Rotherhitheraged for beer , and from two to six blasphemed with a persistency that proved the blessing which we possess in half a dozen Reformed religions . Nevertheless , the desecration of the Sabbath is a capital cant ; and , on Tuesday , nearly 300 gentlemen ,

      everyone of whom will be at parties—Lord Palmerston s and others '—when next Sunday morning opensdecided , against forty-eight desecrators—gentlemen who never wait f 5 f the ballet on Saturday night operas—that it would be to cultivate national damnation if we let Mr . and Mrs . Brown and the children stroll about among pictures and statue 3 , on Sundays , instead of staying in the domestic dark backparlour to drink gin-and-water and get cross with one another . People are abusing Lord Palmerston for his " canting" speech on the subject . But that is ridiculous : the majority is Lord Palmerston ' s

      justification . It fs a consciously religious country , and great statesmen — whose function it is , not to form , but to make use of public opinionmust not overlook cants — must obey the " . religious public . " In Persia ^ the religious _ _ public likes periodical bonfires : and the Persian Prime Minister ordains an unlimited supply of fagots . In England our religious public likes certain corner houses , in its streets , to be closed , its theatres to be shut up , and its " pictures and statues concealed from the general gaze ;—and the clever Prime Minister , who will have his joke about it at a dinner-party ,

      insists on the sanctity , expediency , and beauty of the superstition—and the 300 representatives of the mysterious class of gentlemen who wear white neckclbthsliigh ¥ ^ says Jones of the Daily Democrat : Jones can tell you that the majority is made up of gentlemen who are not painfully ascetic , in the religious point of view- —who keep petites maisons , are gamblers on the Stock Exchange , nobblers on the Turf , and loose everywhere . But the 300 are very sensible fellows to give in to the cant : it is not their business to enlighten the country—they are in Parliament , for certain purposes of their own , on

      condition of representing the average folly of English mankind . The folly is all on the side of the minority , who presumptuoualy affect to be-wiser than their neighbours , and who pretend to sympathise with Mr . and Mrs . Brown , reduced to the alleviation of Sabbatical and compulsory gin-punch . The Liberals are all delighted with Lord Stanley ' s speech : so well delivered , so wide in its sympathies , so strong , so eloquent . Yet if we are to consider Lord Stanley as among our statesmen—the class who select the profession of managing the nation , —it was a very ridiculous speech : it will induce extra ounces of starch into the white neckcloth interest of tho

      empire—it offends a party , —it risks power . Tho old Tories , who are frightfully suspicious of the young Tories— " their minds are filled with the trash of Disraeli ' s novels , Sir , ";—go about sulkily talking of Lord Stanley— ' a dangerous young man , Sir . " And ao he is : for if he goes on voting according to h . is logical conclusions , and not according to his party ' s interests ,-what the deuce is to become of the constitution ? You can't govern a country , —complicated society , and so on , —on first principles ; and Lord Stanley is taking comprehensively to first principles—the paternal dismay being doubtless that of an elderly hen who sees the goslings she has

      hatched ( under a misapprehension ) taking to the water . Biggs quoting a few pages of Barry Cornwall to a hilarious House of Commons , was comic , on Tuesday : but not more ludicrous than sensible Lord Stanley was , in rising from the Tory opposition bench and delivering a speech which W . J . Fox had to compliment . Even a cant ought not to be taken up but at particular times . Sir Robert Peel is quite right , in his position as a generous and amusing individuality , to go in" for Poland and Hungary : but he was quite wrong to obtrude these intensely liberal sympathies of his on the town which he owns , and

      which he could and would empty if they didn t do what he told them , when he stood on the Tamworth hustings as a member of a Government . See the consequences . Lord Palmerston , compromised * had to annihilate his egregious character as a Liberal , and , to the perplexity of whilom deputations , and of that large class , of credulous Liberalisms whom poor Lord Dudley Stuart so nobly and so innocently represented , to announce that he does not contemplate disturbing the map market by wrenching Hungary and Poland into " Independence "—and "

      Independence" is what English Liberals who have no votes and no influence insist on for races of which they know nothing , and which , if they did , they would despise , upon the general ground usually taken by the Briton in his complacent survey of foreigners . Lord Palmerston un-liberalised himself with great vigour and boldness : there was no mistake about his emphatic repudiation of those " sympathies" which once recommended the bottle-holder to the favour of impulsive English Radicals : and , after this , let us hope we shall hear no more of his lordship ' s connexion with

      the Liberal party . Lord Lyndhurst had one of his strange parliamentary successes on Tuesday . His speech does not read as very original matter : his facts were the newspaper facts of the day : his illustrations rather common - place : and his little bits of wit and small well-known Latin quotation from Virgil , impress one with _ the notion that this was the old business . But it is the

      physical triumph—of a man past eighty , blind and deaf , and yet able to speak out his sensible mediocrity with tolerable clearness , distinctness , and grace of manner and gesture , so as to command the attention of the Peers for a full hour—which must be admired . Then , Lord Lyndhurst indicates undecayed acuteness in seizing on so excellent a cant , for momentary purposes , as that which creates the British indignation with Prussia because she attends to her own rather than to English or

      Turkish interests . The morning papers say , was an overwhelming exposure of the perfidy of the Berlin Court and public . Lord Lyndhurst , in act , proved against Prussia precisely tha ^ case which German politicians have so often urged against England : —so ready is one nation to detect political unworthiness in another nation . When Lord Chatham sent Mr . Hans Stanley to Berlin , to ask for the alliance of the new monarchy against France , the great Frederick said— " Your Ministers are too dishonest , and your people too changeable , to allow me to trust to . such an alliance—I dare not depend on you . " Any well-read Frenchman will lishman that the of land is

      show any Eng history Eng the conquest of selfishness—that her success is the success of falsity , and plunder , and relentless commercial despotism . The English Liberal , who assumes too much for his own country , and who is sympathetic with Sclavonians even at times when Great Britain has Irish , Ionian , Kaffir , and Indian insurrections and wars on hand , is frequently inclined to bo an illogical animal : and it docs not become so wise an assembly of statesmen as the House of Peers unquestionably is to bo encouraging the old lawyers of its body in vindication of " eternal justice" in practical European politics .

      The Newspaper Stamp Bill debate on Monday was only remarkable for a further development of the absolute incapacity of the accomplished Sir Cornewall Lewis to carry on a great department in the House of Commons . He cannot speak—that is the whole truth—and it is of no use having n mere man of genius to think—a Chancellor of the Exchequer must bo able to talk . Various circumstances render it doubtful if tho measure can become law : but tho g reat danger is in the fact that tho Minister in charge

      of the bill has no resolution of character , and cannot fight tho bill through its dangerous stage—committee . That it is a good bill is of no account : there are triumphant cants in its way . The cant that tho existing press is of the " highest character" in Europe is , perhnps , tho most awful . This is an objection against change put forward by tho provincial newspaper proprietors—proprietors of potty little concerns which , 'intellectually , arc below contempt , and which , commercially , exist either by

      " consulting" " requests" of advertisers , or by pandering to the prevailing twaddle of some parochial potentate , either a magistrate or a clergyman of the neighbourhood . Even in London the pretension is ludicrous . Compared with the cheap press of Paris the dear press of London is intellectually inferior : this a Manager of the Times admitted as his opinion , to the committee of' 52 : and Avhat " character" can you assert for the versatile Times , if it be not a character for cleverness ? Where is the character of the serenely stupid and vulgar morning paper -which bids for the knowledgeless approval of the metropolitan tap-room , —or of the

      antithetical " fashionable" organ , which " lives" upon the paid paragraphs scattered by house - stewards chronicling the dismal epic of a dull great party ? What character have the other morning papers but that of abundant obedience to " party" dictation—party organs being necessarily un-national and anti-chivalric . As to the weekly papers , which are making themselves conspicuous for conduct so copiously abused in Protectionists — where is their ; character ? What is now the Examiner —still so well able to be witty , vigorous , and original —but a contented parasite of the Times ?—all its

      political and literary ambition apparently gratified in being noticed by its great contemporary—alert in adulation of the " high character" of a journal which , because it is conducted by men who comprehend their country , has but one morale—never to be in a minority . A cheap press may not be astoundingly intellectual , or recklessly honest : but for servility of imitation—not so bad as " piracy , " of course —and fulsomeness of flunkeyism—commend us to weekly journals which are in dread that an unstamped press would vulgarise London journalism . "A Strangee . "

      Untitled Article

      IN TniS DEPARTMENT , AS iU OPINIONS , HOWEVER EXTREME , AEE ALLOWED AN EXPRESSION , THE EDITOR NECESSARILY" HOLDS HIMSELF RESPONSIBLE J ? OR NONE . ]

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      HINTS TO THE ADMIRALTY . ( To the Editor of tTie Leader . ") " Portsmouth , March 19 . Sir , —The sanitary condition of ^ the British fleet must always be an object of primary importance to the British nation . Allow me to bring before your notice the following instance of misplaced economy . On the other side of this harbour stands a most noble edifice , a monument of the interest this nation takes in the welfare of our s ick and wounded seamen , Haslar Hospital . It is approached by a sinuous inlet about half a mile in length , the navigation of which ( even for boats ) is difficult , the mud on either side of the channel ( about twenty yards broad ) being left dry at low-water . The entire distance from the hospital to the Victory must be about a mile , from the hospital to the fleet at Spithead about two and a-half miles . Will you believe

      that .. to _ traverse _ this _ cHst . ance there is no hospital boat—that is , no boat covered in ? I am told that this is not the fault of the local authorities , that a boat of this description has been frequently applied for , but refused on account of the expense ; that is , because' the Lords of the Admiralty fearetl the Brightd-Cobilen spirit of the House of Commons might be irritated through their proposing such an innovation . I have not heard that this wholesome dread ever induced them to propose a diminution in their own salaries .

      It is only due to Messrs . Cobden and Bright to state , that in my recollection no objection has ever been made to any reasonable improvement of the sort I allude to ; their objections have been mainly to useless works , and to the increase of our naval effective force . In the first the majority of your readers will concur . As to the second , you , at least , have always opposed them . You will oblige me by lending your powerful aid to rectify this anomaly , and as , of course , some expense must bo incurred by the country in doing so , allow me to point out a way by which fifty times tho amount expended can bo saved . It is probable that our Baltic fleet will this year ( as they did m 54 ) pass a considerable time off tho island of Nargen , lua isJan

      situated between Revel and Helsingfors . J a is covered with wood tho property of the Emperor ot Russia . A hundred men landed from a line-ot-battlo ship will cut and stack at least fifty tons ot wood per diem ; tho seamen will be amply rccompensea for their extra work by a shilling a day , nnd great will be tho competition for such employment . Allowing a ton of coal to do as much ns five tons ot wood , the expense of fuel equal to a ton of the lormcr will only bo ton shillings , whereas last year wo paia from thirty to forty shillings for coal , and sometimes a good ' bit more . The Bteftmers can embark tho wood ns onsily as they can tho coal , and wo sl » aii have fewor instances of demurrage of colliers . i rusiimr you will persuade the Admiralty to allow tlieso two suggestions to take effect , I have tho honour to remain , Sir , Yours , &c , *

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      280 THE LEAPB R . [ Saturday

  • Citation
    • Leader (1850-1860), March 24, 1855, page 280, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2083/page/16/