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Leader (1850-1860), 17th November 1855, Edition 1 of 2, Page 1104, Untitled Article

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      RIPE FOR LIBERTY . " Are the French ripe for liberty ? " The question might be answered by another , after Locke ' s plan of bottoming— " Is the French nation in its infancy ? " But the question of ripeness is put by a writer in the Sieele with so much force , and so much bitterness in the sarcasm of the circumstances , that we cannot dismiss it as

      selfanswered . . France , indeed , is in that state when its actual condition can only be discussed collaterally . " Writers are compelled to point their expressions in a glancing way , to write at a subject , instead of upon ft ; hence , the French writer dares not give the answer to his own question ; he can only turn it in all sorts of ways . The proposition , he says , would be " too perilous " to be solved directly : —

      which is obtained for us by the dragoon or the constable . But we hare not made less mistakes than France . We can only boast , that we have endured our sufferings earlier , and have enjoyed a longer time , since we struggled through the great contest between the principles of selfgovernment and of government by arbitrary power . It is , however , the rising of the star for France , when her own patriots know and avow that their country has been the prey of the minorities that have divided her . Frenchmen , 111 fraternal contest , have been content to perform over again the fable of the lion and the tiger , leaving France to be carried off by the wolf . The answer to the question 1 that is the point . We are not qnite sure that the eloquence of the French writer will extort one from those who are in authority . We have no expectation of a new charter for France , by Divine mercy , or Impei'ial grace . The question whether a people is ripe for liberty has been asked several times ia the history of different nations ; and to say the truth , we scarcely know one instance—if onein which it has been answered in any but one way . The question was put in England somewhere about the time of Cromwell ; we think , also , in a modified form , somewhere about 1830 , when France and Belgium entertained questions of the kind ; it was put years before in America ; it has been put very recently in Italy , and practically answered in one part of the north of Italy . It is a curious coincidence which we have observed , that the one mode by which a people prove themselves to be ripe for liberty is—J > y taking it .

      " We are therefore compelled to cast about to find middle terms of expression , as for example , these : ' Given a people , with its aptitudes , its histoi-y , and its degree of civilization , to point out by -what signs it may be known whether or not this people be ripe for liberty . ' " Whenever a nation calls for free institutions , the answer infallibly is , " Wait ! the time is not yet come . " Yet nations have attained to liberty who were , according to some tests , not so ripe as

      the French . For example , here is the English nation , which is said to have deserved its free institutions , yet it has its Hyde Park riots , and always has on hand some agitation or other . " If we Frenchmen , " says the writer , " were to agitate one-twentieth part as much as the English do , we should be treated as incorrigibles . " The Americans are ripe for liberty , although they nurse among them those institutions which Mrs . Beecher Stowe denounces . The

      Swedes are ripe , although but recently emancipated from that vassalage to Russia which enabled the potentate even to dictate laws . Try the question by domestic tests . Has France been dismembered , like Sweden ? Has she suppressed liberty in other countries ? She aided the emancipation of the United States ; gave codes of equality to Germany ; protested in favour of Poland j planted civilization in Egypt , &c . ; and , at this very day , the French bourgeois , who is called selfish , proffers his savings to the defence of civilization , while his son falls by the side of the sons of the noble and the peasant on the heights of the Malakhoff . "

      The writer anticipates one objection to his whole position . " It will bo said , that in France there are incorrigible minorities : " this is really the bane of the country . ! Now , wo have the more right to say so , since our own condition is not very different , and perhaps not altogether so much safer , as we are fain to think it . Franco is the prey of her minorities ; the only sign of deficient ripeness for liberty lies in that . That man who claims liberty for himself and his own opinions , is not even , at this day , prepared to concede the same liberty to a party opponent with the same freedom to the opinions which ho condemns . If this country were to sanction the

      violation of the law of / tabeas corpus in the person of a Tory , we should soon see that great safeguard of liberty for nil Liberals trampled undor foot ; If wo wore not prepared to defond the Archbishop of Cantjbkbuuv , the Uov . Baptist Noel ., or Cardinal Wiseman , in expounding their own opinions , we should soon cease to see Lord John Russell vindicating the right of non-conformity foarlossly to expound its own doctrine . Apart from tho direct conflict of opinion , or tho mere possession of place > the majority is always prepared to protect the minority in tlio exorcise of its civil rights ; and we do not vaJuq the victory in argument

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      " THE LEADER" IN EXETER HALL . Those persons who hissed Lord John Hussell at the city dinner the other day , would have as much difficulty ia accounting for their motives , as those who applauded his lectnre in Exeter Hall on Tuesday night . Lord John finished by disparaging the power of reason which cannot lead us up to the highest truth . Christianity alone , he argued , can do that , but it must be a Christianity unembittered by the gull of sectarian and polemical controversy . Tho applause was loud and enthusiastic , such as tho feeling deserved . Yet we cannot handle these matters at all

      without employing our reason ; we cannot separate truth from error without polemics ; and we cannot even compare the conceptions of religious ideas , except through those earnest diversities of creed which sect embodies . We cannot have a blessing without tho price for it . In fact , however , it was not this imperfect utterance of the truth which stirred Lord John Husskll , or which called forth the strongest sympathy . Exeter

      Hall was filled with accredited Christians uudei the patronage of Lord Shaitesbuuy , tho Honourable as well as Reverend Montague Vilhebs , and many " persons of distinction ;" persons who occupy tho best places iu church , as they do in Exotor Hall , or in any buildings where they take part with their humbler fellowcreatures . Tho exhortations to Christianity , therefore , which were no doubt sincere in Lord John , were also a tribute to tho placo and occasion , and

      tho applause was a matter of course . Earlier in the body of tho same lecture he oxpounded a truth—^ imperfectly , no doubt , and yet , earnestly and forcibly—a truth which is not often expounded in . Kxotor Wall , and which , nevertheless , must have tnkon fast hold of the inmost heart of his hearers . His text was tho obstacles which have retarded moral and political progress . Ho told tho old story of Gaulko and illustrated by familiar examples the modo in which constituted opinion has forbidden the utterance of now opinions . Tho conviction of Galileo , that the earth moved , was condemned as opposed to revealed doctrine . The story had been told over and . over again : while at the commencement 01

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      by It-he governing classes . The French Emperor exerts more influence in Great Britain than the whole itody of progressive politicians . He is the inspirer , controller , leader . The War is his , and the British army is his contingent . Great Britain has no longer a policy , Turkey no longer an existence . Constantinople is the Eastern capital of the French Empire . The entire European side of the Bosphorus is iu French military occupation . The lines of Gallipoli , fortified at the suggestion of an English engineer , constitute an impregnable and commanding French . citadel . The English hold one acre of ground , ¦ ¦ containing barracks for about five hundred men . and horses , on the Pera side—their position is on the Asiatic shore . In the city , the police is French ; the public buildings are Frenchabove all , theprestige is exclusively French . So in Europe—particularly so in Russia . England has lost that which she was thought to prize above very other possession , in the endeavour to perfect an alliance which may prove an abyss . The French nation from the first has looked with coldness on the war , and with scepticism on the English alliance . The event in Jersey has come to justify their reserve . A large mass of , the population , impregnated with liberal senti-~ ments , had believed—that which was truevthat the English people , mistaking Louis Napoleon for France , really honoured the . French nation , and desired to forget the ancient feud . But when the dictator of Jersey , with the sanction of the Cabinet , proscribed the favourite writers and orators of France , and expelled them like thieves , and when the English press approved the act , adding to it a systematic defamation of the men whom all that . is not ejihemeral in France delights to honour , the slight basis of an international alliance . crumbled away . The French knew , and every nation on the continent knew , that the policy *> i England was the policy of fear—that she had abused herself to conciliate a powerful ally . The Government is not alone concerned in these humiliating events . The great body of public opinion is infected by the same pusillanimity , which tempts it to the same abasement . ¦ ¦ How many popular journals would dare to reproduce their " articles " or their placards of December , 1851 ? How many men , who then were proud to deny the reasonings of tyranny , would now confess the convictions which , in spite of the servile sophistry of the press , must ,. generate in their minds a secret shame ? We are not writing against the French alliance . Unhappily , England declined the alliance proposed by liberal France in 1848 and > 184-9 , -which was the true opportunity for limit-. IngHhe power of ltussia . No doubt it was * necessary to recognise , and , when war was inevifc-¦ 'ftWle , to co-operate with official France—despotic < Wfree . What we write against is the hypocritical cowavdtoe of public opinion . We are engaged in a contest with Russia . The Emperor of the French is our ally . The Emperor of Austria and the King of Prussia are neutrals—well disposed toward our enemy , The King of Naples , also , has Russian leanings . Well , let us act with good faith in concert with the French Government ; let us watch the governments of Germany . Let us take care that the King of Naples does not injure out cause , if wo have a cause ; but give up this disgraceful pretence of magnanimity , cease theae insults to . Powers who aot just as selfishly as we do , . ' . ' say . nothing of men bastinadoed in Naples , if patriots are to be hanged almost weekly in Mantua , and women whipped in the public jBduarea of Italian cities , without even a WbSperc 4 protest ! from the champions of " fwufeatfon . Even to whisper would bo

      impolitic : Let the war be a fight and not a farce , and leave Despotism and Liberty unmentioned . The war is not between Liberty and Despotism - it ia between Cabinets which have quarrelled .

  • Citation
    • Leader (1850-1860), Nov. 17, 1855, page 1104, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2115/page/12/