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      Untitled Article

      NOTICES % O COttRESPONDEBTTS . C ( Th « i ? urcbaS& System . "—Our correspondent ' s valuable communicatioa is unavoidably postponed until next week . « . ABri * teli'Offl <»*' - " - " W 6 have feason to believo tfh&K ; the book on Napoleon III ., by " ABritish Officer , " was written By the manager of a savings bank , -who holds a commission , in aregiment of City Volunteers 1 The writer of the letter on the Oath case at Newcastle has not sent his name .

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      Untitled Article

      ^ THE ELECTORAL MOVEMENT IN FBANCE . Vu offer to French liberals a few more considerations oh tire great question of tactics trhich iwyw occupies them , without presuming , as we have said fcefore , to think that We are qualified to direct their course . " What is tlie real strength of the Liberal patty P "What is its state of union ? "What is She chance of enforcing against the Government anything like free voting and fair returns ? These are questions . which none but a Ibrenchwan can answer , and which must be answered before the problem can be solved .

      to grant or tt > reject . Measures might also be taken to verify the returns by personal Inquiry in particular districts . After all , it is a great thing when the time comes to have a constitutional rallying point ; and a constitutional rallying point , when the time ^ comes , maybe found in any assembly bearing a constitutional name and nominally discharging constitutional functions , even though its members may be principally or entirely the creatures of power . "Who would

      have supposed that the banner of devolution would have been first raised against the old monarchy by the Parliament of Paris ? The members of such assemblies , though they may be the base nominees of despotism in the eyes of all the world , are not the base nominees of despotism in their own eyes . To themselves they represent the constitutional majesty of the country . They acquire an espr it de corps and those corporate sensibilities of which men even void of honour are

      not incapable . They know that they are brought to their places by the necessities , not by the g-enerosity , of a despotism which has not yet the effrontery to declare itself despotic , and that they owe their creator no gratitude , though while he-is strong they owe him fear . A- few independent members Introduced into such an . assembly may act upon it , and through it , with considerable force and effect when the occasion comes .

      v Let us add that the decision must rest , not with wounded susceptibilities , however just , but with those who can form a cool and impassive view of the true interests of France . It is for these men to decide whether the advantages of a movement which might unite all shades of the Constitutional party in France , and command the respect and sympathy df foreign nations , would or would not counterbalance the nominal recognition which such a movement would involve of the

      Imperial "Government . We say the nominal recognition , for rnen elected as Constitutionalists ( and Constitutionalism alone ought to be the banner of the movement ) could not be understood as really recognising the principle against which they would come to contend . It is difficult on the morrow of a defeat to realize the fact tliat you have been defeated , and that your antagonist has actually won the day . It seems a transient accident , which will pass away of itself , or which a single effort will throw off , as a man throws off the

      nightmare . But Constitutionalism in France has been defeated , Despotism has triumphed ; and a long and painful course may have to be traversed before the liberty afid honour of France can be redeemed . The first steps in that coivrse will be small , and such as Despotism itself , not yet daring to proclaim the servitude of France , is obliged to permit . But these steps must be taken . France requires them , and therefore they arc honourable ; and honourable they will seem when the summit has been won .

      A . united political effort , even if the results Were small , would seem to be a . ¦ mode of keeping alive the vitality and consciousness of the Constitutional party . And , in the absence of a free press , and the other organs of political life , tlie loss of this vitality anJ consciousness is always to be feared . We do not suppose that the hearts and minds of the leading men will ever cease to protest against the infamy of France Btrt the leading men are few ; the multitude

      even of those in whom political virtue and the sense of national honour still live may , as history too plainly tells us , sink into torpor , and grow familiar with degradation , unless roused from their growing lethargy by the stimulus of political effort . A nation which after convulsive struggles to realize a political ideal has sunk down under a despotism , is like an exhausted traveller in the Alps who begins to yield to sleep ; lie must be kept awake by his companion , or Tie will die . A movement of a constitutional land would

      reassure and rally to tlie [ Liberal standard tnany moderate 3 ? rench Liberals , -who would recoil from any movement of a more violent kind . It would also enlist the sympathies , just or pedantic , of constitutional Europe , which , after all , will have no small influence oa the fate of France . The sympathies of tins country especially , tho classical land of constitutional movements , would be strongly enlisted by a sight which would iccal the

      memory of the legal resistance of our anchors to Chablus I . and James II . The idea , prevalent among us , that French Liberals have no notion of political action but that of descending into the street on chimerical enterprises , would be dissipated . Nor could anything tend rnoro to Bhake the hold which the French Government has over public in

      opinion England than the tampering with electoral freedom , and with tho returns , to 'which it will inevitably bo driven . Wo would suggest that , with tho view of making "this tampering patent , a demand might bo made , by an independent member of tho legislature , if there be one , or by way of petition , for proper securities for the correctness w the returns—a demand which the Government might find it equally embarrassing

      Untitled Article

      traeted a temporary alliance , - for a special purpose , with the Liberal party . "Their votes will be welcome , if necessary 3 TJut , we have reason to believe , before their adhesion was signified , the Income-tax movement " was a success . The Government must surrender the War Ninepence ; the House of Commons must deliberate upon the inequalities of the Income-tax . A ratepayers' protest , so violent and so universal , could not be neglected by the Minister without driving a large number of his own supporters into the hostile lobby .

      The Income-tax , then , must be lowered to sevenpence in the pound ; the war ninepence must be repealed . The work of the financial reformers has then to be begun . The tax at the reduced rate will come under diseussion , to be modified or to be abolished . Tlhafc the war ninepence is as unnecessary to the Government as it is intolerable to the nation , may be shown without transplanting whole pages of a blue-book . " We shall want millions less of revenue this year "than were

      wanted last year . " We had then to clear on the accounts of the war ; we have now to rearrange our expenditure upon a peace scale . 3 Joi * d Panmttee promises a vast reduction In this respect . It will be affirmed , no doubt , that the experience of the past three years has proved the wisdom of / being fully prepared to enter upon a conflict with any great power . That , indeed , is a truism ; but it is not advisable , and would be impossible , for England to keep up military establishments so large as would enable her to lay siege to a new Sebastopol without a

      brief delay . The disasters and failures of 1854 . were not . owing to the deficiency of men and materials , but to defects of administrative organization . Let us have the framework of an effective war department , the front and nucleus of an army , and our traditional navy , and , with diminished estimates , we shall always be prepared to enlarge our forces and to replenish our Exchequer , to provide for the emergencies of an unavoidable war . We might have two ' hundred and fifty thousand men in our barracks , a thousand

      siege-guns at Woolwich , an enormous surplus in the Exchequer , yet the calamities of that fatal winter in the Crimea might again and again "be repeated . " When we have perfected our machinery , we need not keep up a war expenditure in times of peace for tho sake of being in working order . We shall have expended sixty-eight millions sterling during the current financial year . If any Black Sea or Baltic debts remain , they may bo consolidated ; we have honoured bills

      enough in the name of Sir Co une wall Lewis - He cau expect little forbearance from tho House of Commons , which , according to Mr . Thomas Chambers , he cajoled and deceived . It is a serious charge that tho Lawyer brings against tho Chancellor , but if tho Chancellor surreptitiously introduced certain , words , opposed to precedent , into tho Incometax Bill , what was the Lawyer doing when ho allowed the ' clerical error' to pass uncriticized ? What is he in Parliament for ?

      SUCCESS OF THE INCOME-TAX AGITATION . Tins War Ninepenco is condemned . In the face of the movement commenced by tho Liberal party , and joined , at tho eleventh hour , by tho Tories , tlie Chanceli-ob or the Exchequer cannot venture to propose that sixteen millions sterling shall bo paid upon the Income-tax during the next financial year ,

      When the agitation for repeal was initiated by the Liberals , wo said that , having first el icitcd the enthusiasm of the country at largo , it would extort tho assent of the Tories in Parliament . Tho declaration of Sir John Pakinqton has loft no doubt that we had correctly estimated the political situation of Mr . Dishatcli and his friends . They wanted a baso of operations , and have

      con-To supervise tho acts of the Government , or to sleep while jugglery is going on , and then to complain of it in Exeter Hall ? The electors of tho Lea should put a question 031 tliis subject to their representative . Members of Parliament arc too much in the habit of yielding to improper influences in the

      Houso , and complaining of the result out of doors . Mr . Apsi ^ ey Pjclla'xt is an example-Ho placed a very judicious motion on tho books last session , with reference to tho unequal pressure of tho Income-tax on agriculture and trades . " I was immediately surrounded by Tories , " ho tells us , " who begged mo to desist . " Of course , he could not dis-

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      Untitled Article

      SATURDAY , JANUARY 24 , 1 S 57 .

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      Untitled Article

      Tiieie is nothing so revolutionary , "because there is nothing so "unnatural and convulsive , as the strain to keep things fixed when all the -world is by the very law of its creation in eternal progress . —Dit . AfiNOED

  • Citation
    • Leader (1850-1860), Jan. 24, 1857, page 83, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2177/page/11/