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Leader (1850-1860), 13th November 1858, Edition 1 of 2, Page 1225, Untitled Article

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      Untitled Article

      NOTICES TO CORRESPONDENTS . No notice can bo taken of anonymous correspondence . Whatever is intended for insertion must be authenticated by the name and address of the writer ; not necessarily for publication , but as a guarantee of his good faitn . It is impossible to acknowledge the mass of letters we receive . Their insertion is often delayed , owing to a press of matter ; and when omitted , it is frequently from reasons quite independent of the merits of the communication . We cannot undertake to return rejected communications .

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      Untitled Article

      RETRENCHMENT AND HEFORM . The great end to be obtained by Parliamentary Reform is good government , and the chief element in good government is cheapness . Government , in fact , signifies restraint and coercion , carried into effect by the power of taxation . To increase it is to increase restrictions and increase taxation . Cheap government isj consequently , good government . It is the diminution of restraint , coercion , and taxation . We need reform to obtain cheap government , and if , like the reform of 1852 , as perverted by the Whigs , further reform should increase the expenditure of government and increase taxation , it would be an evil rather than a good .

      In some quarters there is ' a disposition to speak favourably of reform , "and with ridicule of retrenchment . On this account we place these two words on our banner , and profess to seek Parliamentary Reforin , in order , for one thing , to lessen public expenditure and reduce taxation . As a reason for ridiculing demands for retrenchment , it is alleged that we have multiplied and more populous colonies , extended relations with all the world , a mercantile marine at least double what it was , and our army and navy have twice as much work to do as twenty years ago . The more the indispensable duties of the government are

      multiplied—such as maintaining friendly relations with all the powers of the world , and keeping in readiness a large army and navy—the less of the national resources should the Government apply to objectsnot strictly within the line of its duty . God knows , ay , and the nation knows , that Government performs its duty very imperfectly ; that our means of defence are not adequate ; that the army and navy , though large beyond precedent , are not really efficient ; that all its civil departments are conducted with skill and knowledge disgracefully inferior to the manner in which private business isconducted : and Government should not spend

      more money , but spend less more judiciously . Day by day we have watched the proceedings of tho commission to inquire into contracts , &c , and witli the single exception of the gun factory department , under Major Wilmott , tho Commissioners have found nothing to praise . Day after day more and more examples have come to light ., of stores-Eurchasod at extravagant rates , of useless thingsought or ordered , ana resold at a great loss , and of a continual combination of waste and inefficiency . Tho opponents of economy falsely attribute to it tho faults of tho executive . For ten years prior to 1852 , tho sum expended on the army , ordnance , and navy , was never less than 18 , 901 , 2 < fc 5 J . ; and tho average expenditure

      for tho period was upwards of 16 , 000 , 000 / . per annum . In 1853 , tho expenditure on these services was 10 , 325 , 675 / ., yet when tho war with Russia began , two essentials for every army—a well-instructed staff and a commissariat , though at most only costing a few thousand pounds—wero wanting . They were nominally in oxistcnoc , but absolutely aud hopelessly inettioiont . The oxpoxiso of an enormous staff and of a Jong roll ot commissaries was continually incurred ; but wnou required for scrvioo our troops porishocl bv thousands from the inefficiency of tho UulT and tile oommw sarmfc . Tlio votes of money for the army by 1 arliamont through tho whole period wore « mplo , but the money was grievously misapplied . At was wasted .

      Untitled Article

      to crush all liberty of thought , whether in the form of historic controversy or refined sarcasm , which the proceedings against Montalembert disclose , is calculated , more than anything else which could have been imagined , to establish a tacit truce between the scattered elements of disaffection , and to bind them together by a bond more powerful than that of secret oaths for mutual defence against their common foe . To the selfish and time-serving , who have profited by the present order of things , and who look to further gains from its continuance , this new attempt to stretch authority is equally unwelcome . Their speculative games require above all things that the table should be steady , and their sordid instincts bid them look with disgust and a ^ may at __~ n . n . * . 4-. n-n + »; iiinn > wH . li > . ¦ + li » t . r » nndifcion . Thev ™^^^ ^^^ » ii 1 i . l __ i . l i— -i-l , « fn * m %

      deprecated as earnestly as any patriot could do the violence and folly displayed by the Imperial Government at the beginning of the present year , in consequence of her serious crime . But they consoled themselves with the conviction that the abortive effort to bully England into an alien bill , and the more easy enactment of ex post facto laws of proscription in France , were but ebullitions of personal anger and fear , and that when these impulses subsided * the waters of absolutism would resume their former channels . The present case is far more suggestive to their minds of misgiving and alarm . Nobody pretends to believe that Comte de Montalembert is in any

      royal family at Bavonne ; and this is the substance and sum of his offending . These are the opinion * for whose utterance in an article published in s fortnightly magazine , and obviously neither meant nor calculated for general reading , one of the most highly-giftedj influential , and distinguished men in France is to be placed at the bar of a criminal court , there to answer on a charge of constructive treason . It is in vain that the conscience-stricken minions of Government pretend that the proceedt-1-ittoI fomiltr at "Roxrr » Tin *> ' anH t . hlH IS tilti SUDStailC (

      ings against M . Montalembert will not subject him to the penalties of the recently enacted laws . We have reason to know that , having taken the best legal advice on the subject , he is convinced of the contrary , and that if he be unjustly convicted , he is fully aware that it will be impossible for him to live in France . Fine and imprisonment are , perhaps , not contemplated by his persecutors , unless it be in the hope that the threat of their infliction may more effectually ensure his exile from a land within whose confines the existence of such a man . is believed to be a peril and felt to be a reproach .

      sense a revolutionist or a conspirator . The whole history of his life and opinions gives the lie to such an imputation . A royalist by birth and a Catholic by education ; a friend of well-ordered liberty , but still more a worshipper of authority and order ; so little infected with any fanaticism for the Bourbons that he actually accepted the post of senator after the coup d ' etat , and so little averse to the fundamental item of the foreign policy of the empire that the very article for which he is about to be arraigned is , in the main , a eulogy on the English alliance ; so little of a schismatic that he cites with admiration the acts and writings of Pius IX ., and more than one bishop of the Catholic Church ; and so little of a leveller that it was he who most

      vehemently called from the tribune of the National Assembly for some interposition which should save " society from what he then deemed its imminent danger : —such-is the man , the very incarnation of enlightened and independent conservatism in France , whom Louis Napoleon seeks to hunt down under the provisions of laws enacted professedly against plotters , anarchists , and assassins . What is this but to poison at its fountain the very life-blood of law ? What is this but to mine suicidally the strongest buttresses of authority ? What is this but to declare that instead of jjonapartism being content with predominance above all other things French , nothing that is French shall be henceforth tolerated in Franco save that which is

      Bona-PROSECUTION OF M . MONTALEMBERT . Throughout every circle of educated society in Fiance the approaching trial of Jtf . Montalembert is awaited with mingled emotions of curiosity , solicitude , aud misgiving . Where moral and political stagnation is prescribed by law , a novelty like that which the Procurcur Imperial has inconsiderately

      promised fills the languid and tlie idle with the unwonted hope of an intense sensation . The mind of France has been reduced under the existing rdgimc to a condition of low fever , in which the patient is at once singularly ill-fitted to undergo a violent shock , and is yet morbidly anxious to sustain one . Anything , however intrinsically painful , is looked forward to with craving , which will brook , though but momentarily , the spell of that torturing ennui with which thoso arc aillicted who , having once enjoyed the brisk air of freedom , now inhale only the oppressive atmosphere of national imprisonniont With far different feelings is tho approaching trial awaited by tho many proud hearts that during tho last seven years have mpurncd in silence tho political prostration of their country , loyalists and Republicans , earnest Catholics and philosophic thinkers , friends of constitutionalism , tind followers

      of Louis Blanc , havo this one tie of common sympathy , in that thoy are all aliko disfranchised of the privilege they valued most—that of uttering their sinccro convictions . Hitherto , however , the tios of this sympathy have been comparatively slack , because despotism Ibi'bovo in general to modulo with opinions that wore not addressed to the mussos , and that did not ostensibly lead to resistance , in some active form , to its authority . The differences of roligious and political faith kept theso followsuflbrors from tyranny apart , and indisposed them , in the bitterness of their despair , to accept tho solace of one another ' s pity . But Iho madness of unbridled power is likely to subduo at lust past resentments and future fours . Tho insane attempt

      partist ? It were waste of time and space to dwell seriatim on the witty and eloquent passages which have been made the staple of accusation against this stainless , accomplished , and noble-minded man . He retains his preference for the limited liberties of the Restoration and the Orlcanist regime , and in two or three sarcastic sentences he ventures to say so . He regrets the absence of constitutional discussion , and the suspension of publicity iu a ( lairs of state ; and his regret is intimated in a few lines of sardonic irony , the full point of which would have remained impalpable to ¦ nincty-niuo out of ono

      hundred readers , had not the mental microscopes of all Franco been fixod upon it by tho lunatic proceedings of the Government . He recounts in goncrous and grateful terms tho consideration shown by England for the royally , tho noblesse , and tho priesthood of France in tho days of exile and misfortune , aud he rebukes tho fanatical blindness and injustice of those exclusive pretenders t 6 sanctity who aro never woarv of reviling the religion aud tho government of this country . He proudly

      repudiates , in . tho nnnio of Catholicity , the envy , hatred , malice , and all uncharitablcncss which rejoices in tho calamities of Indian revolt and denies to us tho peaceful glory of successful colonisation . And while ho reiterates Ids objections to oortaiu portions of our administrative policy ,, aud to tho greater part of . our diplomacy as condtioteu by Lords Palmcrsfon and Clarendon , ho frankly owns that there is nothing iu its records comparable iu point of immorality to tho destruction , of tho Republic of Vcnipo , or tno ambuscade and kidnapping of tho Spanish

      Untitled Article

      In consequence of the great importance and the growing interest attached to the subject of REFORM IN THE REPRESENTATION , we this day present to our readers A Sebxbs of Ojriginai . Articles , entitled , " FACTS , THOUGHTS , AND SUGGESTIONS ON THE COMING REFORM BILL , " BY A PRACTICAL LEGISLATOR . To be continued weekly .

      Untitled Article

      The articles on the Royal Family of Prussia having been much approved of , No . 1 of a New Series , entitled , " BIOGRAPHIES OF THE GERMAN PRINCES , " by the same able and well-informed writer , is commenced this day , and will be continued weekly .

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      ¦^ nkiAffairs .

      Untitled Article

      it SATURDAY , NOVEMBER 13 , J . S 58 .

      Untitled Article

      There is nothing so revolutionary , T ) ecause 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 , —Dk . Aknold . a—' ¦ —

      Untitled Article

      No . 451 , November 13 . 1858-1 THE REAPER , 1225 — —^— " ^ ^^^^^^ ^ ^ " ^ " V

  • Citation
    • Leader (1850-1860), Nov. 13, 1858, page 1225, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2268/page/17/