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    for a moment quitting their specialities to create a broad basis of reform . But it is not enough to lament this prodigality of personal exertion , raising small excitements on separate platforms , but giving no impetus to the great machine by which all political change , in this country " , must be effected . " We want a foundation , we want a leading object , and that can . be no other than an improvement of bur parliamentary institutions . Will Mr . Miall calculate the ' work done ' during the last ten years in connexion with the Church . Establishment ? Sir William

    Clay as to church-rates ? Mr . Berkeley as to the ballot ? What better chance have the Jews of entering Parliament than they had in . 1850 ? What way is made by the prompters of public education ? Do we gain a step upon our ministers in the matter of foreign policy ? Are our legal reformers satisfied with the results of tlieircollective

    affecting industry , to purify our corporations , to get the work of the public done in a creditable manner by the servants of the public , we must have a parliament that is inclined to do these things , not a parliament which has repeatedly and pertinaciously refused to do them . A great political union might at this time preserve the country from many dangers , and ensure it much prosperity , and much real glory . Why sliould not this union include liberal reformers in and out of parliament , and journalists agreed to labour for a common purpose , that the machinery of reform might be renovated and improved ? It would be a sign of political health and morality . It is not altogether the public that is indifferent . The puhlic gathers together upon invitation . Sound political leadership would not be long without a powerful following .

    exertions ? Do they who lament the declining efficacy of Parliament believe they have , at present , any chance of enforcing a remedy ? Can any liberal member , however influential , hope to "ameliorate the Poor-Law ? No ; Mr . Miall may labour with his face to the East , and Sir " William Clay with his face to the " West . The annual debate

    on the ballot may dwindle down to an unanswered speech from Mr . Berkeley , followed by a ministerial majority . Committees may sit , and investigate our continental relations , but nothing will be altered ; because , while the reformers stray along diverging paths , each dwelling on his own infinitesimal project , the Conservatives , including the AVhigs , bear down in compact masses . First , they "beat Mr . Bbbkeliiy , then they baffle Sir Hekuy Clay . Next

    they turn their extended front against Mr . Gobbett , who , having retired , leaves them free to engage with Mr . Oliveika , who ( may his shadow never diminish ) desires to cheapen wine . We know not "what these gentlemen would say were it seriously proposed to defer , for a time , theconsideration of special topics , in order that the ground might be prepared by a large measure of political reform . They must be aware that , if they make any progress with the several ' interests' they'have taken in

    charge , it is so slow as to be all but hopeless . Annually , they rally the same supporters , tlieir minorities being smaller or greater according to the number of independent Liberals in the House . Thus , Sir "William Clay lias his steady adherents in the cause of church-rate abolition ; Mr . MiajjL is sure of a particular set to vote with him on ' voluntary 1 points , and these two reformers work together to a considerable extent ; but where are they when other Richards are in the field ? Their subject is not , ' so they are ' off . ' It is to be doubted whether one

    member of the Liberal party could indicate the line of action that will be pursued by another during the next session of Parliament . A scheme of united action would take them by Burprise . Tct this , it seems to us , is a necessary condition of success . It is the moral of our parliamentary history for the last twenty-five years . The Reform Bill was the prolific parent of a hundred practical reforms ; another lloform Bill might be the t

    parent oas many more . It would be vain , at this moment , to consider the necessity of such a measure , the public ear bein g closed to all discussions of the kind ; "but it ia by no means tho wrong time to press upon Liberal members of -Larhament the adoption of general grounds , upon winch they can work in -union , and towards a general object . Political reforms are conquests , special reforms are prizes , to be distributed after the victory . If \ vo desire to abolish church-rates , to introduce humanity into our poor-law , to amend our statutes

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    OUR FOREIGN ACCOUNT BOOK . The Paris Union does not share the apprehensions of the JUJoniteur that the calumnies of the English press will trouble the friendly relations of the two states , but it entertains the opposite fear , that " the two countries will be brought into an accordance of ideas

    winch would place them beyond the ban of social instincts , and of all Europe . " This indeed would be a frightful destiny . Imagine the two chief countries in Europe placed without the pale , not only of European civilization , but of the instincts of mankind ! We look , theu , to see the reason of this fear , and we find it thus stated : " France is the central

    point of the political world , England is perhaps the central point of the commercial world : these two contrary positions cannot give rise to the same tendencies , ideas , or passions , and if they become assimilated France must lose her genius . " If we were conjuring up apprehensions we might anticipate the opposite results—that England was losing her genius ; or , we might say , that England had lost her genius , some time since , when she abandoned Cromwell ' s principle of sturdy self-government and went into trade , leaving government to the upper classes . Prince Albert warned us the

    other Any that " constitutional government was on its trial . " He stated these things in his capacity as a guest of the Merchant Tailors : if he had consulted the English people , they might have told him that they had begun to give up constitutional government , as they found it interrupt them in trade . There can be no other reason why those who are nominallv the ' servants' of the

    crown , and of the country , are at present carrying on the most important national affairs without letting the country know a word about it or have any cluo to their actual position . What we are afraid of is , that our Government will ultimately be found accomplishing some betrayal of constitutional principles without any opportunity of preventiug it . At present their position is perfectly unintelligible , and the guesses which we make only tend to sharpen our

    apprehenns . Somo difficulty has occurred on the Danube . This is intelligible enough in its nature , but not in its predisposing causes . Having let llussia . outwit them in the Paris Conference , tho " Western Powers find they cannot settle the new boundary . Turkey does not wish Austria to remove her troops from the frontier before the boundary be settled , but liusaia has won over France to demand the

    whicli the late war was commenced ; and our Government has drifted into such a position , that it finds itself relying upon Austria I We have withdrawn our Ambassador from Naples , but not the more does King Bomba give in . What next are we to do ? Are we to occupy some point of the King ' s territories ? And if we do , what are we to do with it ? For it is resolved , or supposed to be resolved , in deference to France , that we shall not run the risk of promoting an insurrection in Italy , so that we threaten the King and keep at a distance from him- —a mode of treatment not likely to operate on his fears .

    There is , however , a risk to which this country is exposed that would in no degree surprise the students of Napoleonic histor } r and ' Ideas . ' Count Walewski at present is allowed to coquet with Austria and . Russia in turn , and to put into the Moniteur those silly notifications which can Lave no effect but to offend the people of this country and to make the French , peop le believe that we are hostile to them . It does not follow ,

    however , that the Emperor intends always to let his agent have his own way ; and it would occasion no surprise if lie were to sanction a coup d'etat on Italian ground , in the constitutional sense . He would then be the great patron and liberator of Italy ; and England would be exhibited in the light of skulking in Italy for the fourth time—of skulking when thV Work which she had put the Italians up to iust awaited its finishing stroke .

    Count Walewski ' s circular m the Moniteur makes some other reports which have not been contradicted by our Government . He implies that something has been settled in Greece . Now , w-hat is that ? That the Belgian Government has given some satisfaction on the score of the beggarly anti-Grallican newspapers which were published in

    Brussels . But what does this mean ? Lord Clakendon protested , in terms , against the allusions to the Belgian journals ; and is it possible that the uncle of the Queen has been made to submit to the indignity of giving explanations on this point ? If so , it is not the genius of France which is in bondage to the alliance , but the genius of England .

    Some time since the English Government was braving every difficulty with America ; then insolently refusing satisfaction on the enlistment question ; insisting upon the right of appropriating Huatan without any Legislative sanction in , this country , and so proclaiming its resolve to stand by the beggarly

    Mosquito Indians to the last man . What do we hear now ? That the Mosquito Indians have been taken under the joint protectorate of England and the United States , with power reserved for the state of Nicaragua to extinguish the titles of the Indians , while Ruatan—English territory—has been surrendered to the state of Honduras without

    the slightest authority from the Representatives of this country- —indeed , without the slightest explanation . The taxes of our people were raised for the purpose of the war . It seems probable that wo shall be defrauded of the advantages of the war by the caprices or iucompetency of our managers . We are still in close alliance with a country whose ' genius' insults our allies , including the near relative of our Queek , and insults our people through its press . We have been making some settlement in Greece agreeable to Count "Walewskt . We have been giving up the territory of this country without the leave of Parliament . Sir Hobebt J ? bel tolls ua that we are on tho verge of a war—commencing somewhere , perhaps at tho foot of Mount Vesuvius—without the slightest guarantee that the war will bo consistent with tU ' e

    withdrawal of the Austrian troops " as soon as possible , " in the letter of the Paris Treat }' . Here , then , there is a difference between the Allies , which on the Teassombling of the Paris Congress mav frustrate the very objects -with

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    November 1 , 1856 . ] THE LEADER . 104 . 5

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), Nov. 1, 1856, page 1045, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2165/page/13/