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Leader (1850-1860), 22nd October 1859, Edition 1 of 2, Page 1178, Untitled Article

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      Untitled Article

      fail- —are denounced in the same terms , which again , involves misstatement of facts . The assertion runs thus :- — " The inevitable eflbrt of strikers is to level all merit , to benefit the lazy and incapable at the expense of the industrious and skilful , and to rob all concerned in them for the profit of a few agitators and mobseekers . " Some recent cases have occurred in which an advance of wages has been obtained by strikes . Does his lordship pretend that the lazy and incapable are benefitted in these instances at the expense of the industrious and skilful ? The concluding passage isf in most cases , destitute of foundation , as the allowances made by the trades unions to their executive officers are usually very small . We have noticed these errors at some length , because they tend to shut the ears of the working class to

      argument upon the subject . If you want to convince a man that he is wrong it is folly to begin by . abusing him and misrepresenting both his motives and his conduct . In the builders' strike , which has already lasted , three months , there is wrong on both sides ; and if the employers complain that the men forced them to combine , it is equally true that their own want of conciliation and readiness to use force instead of argument has been one serious cause of prolonging the strife . A knowledge of political economy would greatly benefit both master and man ; but until there is a more mutual good feeling we shall of ten have to deplore a destructive battle to settle questions that might have been adjusted by good-natured appeals to reason and fact .

      Untitled Article

      THE INCOMPETENT ADMIRALTY . The subject of manning the navy again excites attention . Two admirals have , in the course of the week , appeared in print on the subject , which continues in a most unsatisfactory state . Numerous letters have of late appeared , recommending new modes of procuring men . So rnuch , in fact , is said and suggested that it might be supposed nothing had ever been done to improve it . Yet we have had two or three commissions of

      inquiry ; and , last session , as the result of their labours , an elaborate Act was passed—in fact ,, the chief Act of the session- ?—to carry into effect their recommendations . It is one of the vulgar expedients of dipping the hand into the national pocket , and it involves the annual expenditure of the best part of a million of taxes . It goes so deep into the matter as to begin with boys before tiey are well out of the cradle , and does not leave the sailor till he goes to his grave . Either all these inquiries and this Act are worthless , like the . other inquiries the authorities have instituted and the other Acts they have passed to procure

      men , or the many letter writers have scribbled utterly in vain . Both , indeed , may be true- The Act may be worthless and the suggestions of no value . But if the Act have answered , or be likely to answer , its purpose , these letters are out of date . The thing the writers demand has been done . If it have not answered , and the navy is still as much in want of . men us ever , the letter writers and the admirals will not supply the deficiencies } for they generally , like the authorities , propose some : elaborate scheme to perform what is actually done to their hands . To provide men is a suitable occupation for a slave owner ; in a free country wherever men are really wanted they we already provided .

      There never is any want pf njen to plough the fields ^ to weave cloth , or to dig coals ; and as food , clothing , and fuel ore quite as necessary as defence , there never can bo a wont of men for this -purpose if it be not a defence of slavery and wrong . What number of navvies was collectedly railway contractors when the great work of making railways was begun , we cannot say ? but we approhendtllat more than twice the number required to rumour fleet was found to performthe stupendous work . It was altogether new . There was nobody brought-up to it as a trade . Men had to learn now to make locomotives and tunnel the earth . Bwt all that work was done , and very soon more men-were ready to labour at . it than could find work ; to 4 o ,. In fact it is a general principle , conf pspnue ^ . by much , experience , , th ' ai > wherever there is remuneration to

      A-Kponanje ) or . worK uo , nnu PJJW ^ ojftfopd ») drink ^ and clothing ior doing it , no w ^ jw ^ i'Vrfflft tj ) the work to b ©< done * there , will wwyqlibewnen to . take the pay , consume the food , wwtatf tbio work ; It is aa eilly : therefore , to

      fear a want of men for any employment as it is to fear £ hat the wind will cease to blow , the rain to fall , or the sun to shine . General' principles may be relied on in ; society or morals as well as in physics , and the authorities who do not rely on them are as much beside themselves as if they thought day would never return if they went to sleep * Although we have an Admiralty , says Sir C . Napier , which costs . £ 100 , 000 a year , no Board has ever hit upon a method of manning the navy economically and expeditiously . This is very far belo-iv the truth . Every Board has hit on a method ,

      which might , a priori , have been thought impossible—to keep men out of the navy and prevent it being economically and expeditiously manned . It has scandalously appropriated honours and rewards to one class , and pro tanto disgusted and driven away others . It has sturdily refused to pay the men reasonable wages , and has wasted three times as ranch as would have compensated them on useless officers . It has hedged round her Majesty ' s ships with bayonets ; has swung furiously aloft the bloodstained cat : and boasted of the iron stocks

      employed to chain seamen by the feet , and furiously swore like a pirate that all seamen should be subdued by terror . It has given the navy the horrible features of a . ^ dungeon ; arid though men will go anywhere to work , and do anything for reasonable pay , they will not freely maim themselves , nor embrace disgrace and torture . That men for her Majesty ' s ships cannot be had to any number required , and at any moment , is the fault of the Board and of the Legislature * which has followed the lead of the Board .

      la the nineteenth century seamen are still treated as if they were serfs . It is supposed to be their duty to lay down their lives for other men , who claim the r ight by scourging of making them perform it . They do not voluntarily defend them selves—they are forced to defend others . A system of really voluntary defence would soon , to the shame of all despots , bring more men to the national fleet , animated with zeal ,. and powerful both in tody and mind , than could be gathered by the most elaborate conscription . Little mechanical

      appliances may be safely trusted to naval men , but they should not be allowed for one moment , on any pretext whatever , to violate the great principles of freedom and justice . Bristling bayonets , torturing cats , and a tyrannical system of discipline , for the behoof of an idle aristocracy , must be put an end to—^ impressment , everybody admits , is for ever gone—and then the nation will always get as many men for the navy as it has funds to pay . The Admiralty is utterly insensible to such ; ruth . Confined to official records in its own

      paper boxes , like the Bourbons and other lost rulers , it learns nothing of the general progress , and is now utterly disgraced by being the single employer in . society , with unbounded means , whom people will not serve . By persisting in old injustice this besotted Board is solely and entirely to blame for all the evil arising from a want of men in the navy . "When we consider how it has been composed we have no right to expect anything better . From the First Lord downwards , ever since the time of Lord Sandwich , the Board has been a place for what Mr . O'Connel called shaye-beggar statesmen . Through all that long period we recollect only

      two men of decent capacity at its head—Earl St . Vincent and Sir James Graham , and they both turned it topsy-turvy without being able effectually to reform it . So miserably has it been " maimed * " that the quarter sessions squire , Sir JohnFakington , towers high above the Sir Charles Woods , the Sir Francis Barings , the Visoount Melvilles , the Earl of Haddington , and the'other successors of Lord Sandwich . We take no account of subordinate naval lords . They generally sacrificed their naval reputation , if they had any , hv her »<"» mino' nai'tv and nnliiiinnl tnnls . TPh « rxivlin . - ¦¦ rwf Kl * vmfw # Wv Ifnt

      f * m W n— ^^^^^ ^^ ^^ rm ^ m ** . * W * % W ^ VTP < ^*_ J ^* m ^^ v W" ^^ ^ IV v ^ v ^ nw ¦ ^ P ^ V ^ 0 M ^ v I ^^ w ^ mentary secretaries , however , have been influential persons , and amongst them " the late Mr . Croker , who occupied the office for many years , was notoriously a political and literary adventurer' — olever , but utterly unprincipled ; Mr . Osborno , too , so lively in opposition , passed years of torpid ) , by in office , unable apparently tqijoverpomo the malaria of tho place . With suoh ohjefs and such sulwdin natea , the . whole establishment being framed to seoure parliamentary influonoes , scandalous inefficiency ' and'corruption are the inherited ; charapter * iatics of our dockyards * and' unpopularity ruins

      the navy . The source of the mighty evils is the ignorant and incompetent Board ; of Admiralty .

      Untitled Article

      THE " DUDLEY STUART" MEDAL . The presentation of the Stuart medal to Lord Harrowby by the Polish exiles deserves at least a passing mention . 'There was something sad about the whole scenes—sad in the circumstances under which it occurred —sad , " too , in the memories it called forth , and yet the sadness was not unchequered . Throughout a long life , Lord Dudley Stuart fought a losing fight , and toiled in a hopeless cause . He joined the friends of Poland in days long gone by , when the wrongs of that illfated country were fresh in men ' s memories , and when a Pole was the lion of the hour . Then the fashion changed—success sanctified crimeand the

      , sorrows of Poland became stale , as an oft-told story . Friends fell away , and statesmen looked aside , and philosophers argued that the means were justified by the result . Almost alone , the gallant-hearte _ d nobleman remained true to his first ardour . He was found , in very truth , " faithful amongst the faithless . " In spite of hostility , in spite of ridicule , in spite of that dead , dull indifference , worse than enmity , more fatal than mockery , he laboured on ^ under his self-imposed burden , nothing daunted . His home , his purse , and his time

      , and , more than all , his honest sympathy , were ever at the service of the Polish exiles . " There was no movement in behalf of Poland in which he failed to take a part ; no meeting at which he was not present , with his frank English bearing , and his cheery , pleasant voice . There may have been wiser men in his time—men better fitted , perhaps , to serve the State ; but there never was a more warm-hearted advocate of the people ' s cause ; never ( ridiculed as the phrase may be , now-a-days ) a truer " friend of freedom . " His end befitted his life well . When

      at the outbreak of the Russian war the last faint gleam of hope for Poland rose and faded , and died away , Lord Dudley Stuart made his last effort in her behalf . He went over to the Scandinavian courts , in order to secure support for the Polish cause , and there died suddenly , in the execution of his mission , on the confines of that country he had served so truly and lored so well . We riiight almost say that with him there died the last hope of Poland . The Peace of Paris left Russia more powerful at Warsaw than before the war , and each succeeding year seems to render her sway more firm and more irresistible . There are

      still left amongst us , however , a band of Polish exiles—men who have grown grey in the weariness of hope deferred , and to them the recollection of Lord Dudley Stuart is well nigh * he only pleasing memory in the dull waste of years that they have passed in exile . These gentlemen had purposed , rather in token of their recollections than their hopes , to present a medal , recording the services of their old friend , to his sister Lady Harrowby . This lady , however , did not long survive the brother , with whom she had often joined in his labour of love , and Lord Harrowby , was the o nly recipient left to receive the " Stuart" medal .

      May it bo kept reverently , and worn worthily I In these days of imperialism and of " manifest destinies , " the example of Lord Dudley Stuart was not unneeded . Men . are rare at all times—now perhaps ,. more than ever—to whom the " causa victa" pleases rather than the " causa victrix . In gpod . and in ill report , through life and unto death , Lord Dudley Stuart remained constant to the simple faith that , in the words of tho Great Frederick , " the right must at some time oomo to pass ; " and for this" faith , if for this alone , his ife will not be altogether useless , nor his labour in vain .

      Untitled Article

      " SOCIAL SCIOLISM . " Thjs seven sages of England have been down to Bradford * Lord Brougham went there as tue champion of useful knowledge , pure and unadulterate . The Penny Magazine , it is true , is extinct , and tho Birkbeck Institution is insolvent . Theory , however , is greater than fuot , ana , "K © the knight in " Excelsior , " the veteran p hilosopher still bears aloft his banner with the motto , ' Knowledge is power . " Lord Shaftosbury was present to check the presumptuous ardour of unrocenorate ana unbelieving science M ^ Monokton MMnes was not wanting also' to temper science with noetrv ana sentiment . Mr . Adderley was the p hilanthropic

      Untitled Article

      MZ& THE LEABE 1 [ Wo . 500 . Oct . 22 ; 1853 ;

  • Citation
    • Leader (1850-1860), Oct. 22, 1859, page 1178, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2317/page/14/