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Leader (1850-1860), 12th November 1859, Edition 1 of 2, Page 1250, Untitled Article

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      Untitled Article

      the age- of Walpole or even Chatham , but not suitable to the year 1859 . It is unworthy of England ^ which since Walpole ' s time has become , in relation to Spain , ten times more powerful than she was then , to be jealous or apprehensive at Spain . Suppose she should waste some of her little strength in occupying a little piece of Morocco , instead of improving her home territory ; suppose she should attempt to impede our trade to the Mediterranean , or starve Gibraltar into a surrender , her few remaining colonies would be at our mercy , and the attempt would probably be her total ruin .

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      - THE NATIONAL . PROSPERITY . " Whether we take the great increase of revenue , the present state and condition of our trade , into consideration , or look to the diminution of pauperism in the king dom , we still find the most gratifying evidence of the sound condition and healthy state of our national affairs , " said the Home Secretary , at Guildhall , on Wednesday . A more gratifying statement could not be made ; but it does not adequately express all the facts of bur present condition . Not only is pauperism very much diminished and diminishing—not only is our trade ¦ wonderfully enlarged and enlarging—not only is the revenue increasing—but all kinds of serious

      crimes have diminished and are diminishing , as is amply proved by the judicial statistics for 1858 . In . addition , our population is increasing very ; fast , and as it increases it creates an additional quantity of wealth , and the whole people are better supplied with cbmforts and necessaries than were their fewer and more barbarian fathers . These are now established facts—the intimate relation between increase of people and increase of civilisation , is a matter beyond dispute , and the old , horrible theory that population and evil , population and misery , population and sin and barbarism , go togther , is for ever annihilated .

      No one in the least degree acquainted with the statistics of the empire will doubt for one moment that during the last ten years the number of offences , in proportion to the population , has decreased- —that in the same interval the number of paupers has largely decreased—that the bulk of the people have been better fed , better clothed , and altogether are in a better . condition than ever before . Nor will any one . acquainted with the history of science and art during this period doubt for one moment that both have made a greater progress than in any previous ten years of our history . These facts cannot be gainsaid . Now ¦ w e are informed by the Registrar-General that in thia interval the population has been incessantly and rapidly increasing . His last quarterly return for the three months ended September states that in this period the births exceeded the deaths in

      England and W ales by 63 , 972 , and that , in consequence , on the average , 095 were added to our population daily . Since 1851 , the date of the last census , such an increase has been continuallygoing on , and the number of the people in this part of the island has increased from 17 , 983 , 000 to 19 , 7 . 45 , 000 in the present year , or by 1 , 762 , 000 , so that all the wonderful improvements in the period have accompanied a very rapid increase of people . In fact , no civilisation is worthy of commendation , no increase in trade , no inventions in arts are ultimately of any real value if they'do not tend to an increase of population . Society exists for the benefit of tlie individual , and all State regulations and contrivances are worthless which do not add to the number of the people and then welfare .

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      THE ROMISH CHURCH MILITANT . Whuh Romanism is contemplated merely as a system of theology it presents the aspect of a set of propositions , sentiments , and traditions , which demand a respectful treatment because they constitute the religion of a large portion of . the civilized world ; but when it roveals itself as the enomy of civil liberty and tin © corner stone of treacherous and vindictive despotism , when it openly assails the friends , of progress ana exerts all its open and its secret influences to crush the lifts of nations and make earth tremble under the double domination of the tiara and the sword , it deserves t ^ rowspdriha and untiring hostility of every lover of J * 5 ? S& ? and of truth . We advocate no persecution W ^« gM > us opinions , or of men for holding them ^ let-tm . / be free , if they choose , to follow Joanna

      Southcoat , Dr . Cullen , or Joe Smith , but let a determined fight be made against all combinations of priestcraft which are incompatible with human right . Among the millions of Roman Catholics wnich Europe holds are large numbers with whom their religion is a personal question , and who , if not instigated to mischief by their priests , would lead quiet inoffensive lives , and never attempt an authoritative meddling with their neighbours ' concerns . Far different from this class is another , headed by proud , ambitious , intriguing priests , whose dream by night and by day is ^ to establish in modern Europe a system of ecclesiastical despotism more penetrating and profound than that which Hildebrand conceived . These men adopt the Jesuit maxim that the end sanctifies the

      means , and crime and falsehood are instruments ever ready and ever welcome to their hands . The progress of events in Italy has filled them with alarm lest their edifice of corruption should perish ; and by political intrigue , by tierce denunciation , and the baleful power of the confessional , they are striving to bring all their forces into the field and fight what they lope will be a final and victorious battle with th « independence of the human mind . The tone and temper of this struggle is well exhibited in the speeches of Archbishop Cullen and his compeers in the late Irish demonstration of sympathy with the Pope .

      According to this malignant priest , Lord Malmesbury and Lord John Russell are equally odious for conspiring against the temporal sovereignty of Pio Nono , whose government is described as the most perfect which the world has ever seen . Lord Shaftesbury and the Evangelical Alliance are not less objects of ultramontane wrath , and they are accused of procuring funds to arm the " worst banditti against a peaceful arid humane sovereign , who has never given England , or to any of net subjects , the slightest ground of complaint . " Garibaldi and the Italian patriots being disposed of as " banditti , " it naturally follows that Francis Joseph should be the subject of laudation , and accordingly

      we find him spoken of as " the noble and generous Emperor of Austria , who has boldly broken the chains which bound the Church in his vast empire , and given the death-blow to the tyrannical innovations of Joseph II . " IJouis Napoleon he professes to believe a thoroughly faithful son of the Church . In Spain , Portugal , Brazil , and Belgium ,, he finds ample ground for satisfaction . " Sardinia is the only plague spot oik the Catholic map of Europe , " and the people of that unhappy country are declared to be " grWaing under a military despotism , and suffering from the misdeeds of their exoommunicated rulers . "

      We have been in the , habit of supposing the Papal government to be the very worst in Europe , and the French Emperor has kept an army in the Holy City for the purpose of preventing the inhabitants from dismissing the Holy Father , and his red-legged conclave ; but all this is a mistake . No sovereign is so profoundly beloved , and " his whole court breathes , like their master ,, a true spirit of Christian virtue . " This most veracious gentleman ended his tirade by declaring his belief that Heaven would furnish aid to do what he called , " vindicate the rights of religion , and maintain the independence of spiritual power . "

      The Very Rey . Monseigneur Yore proposed a resolution expressing " grief and abhorrence at the violent and sacrilegious invasion of the territories of the Church ; vwhjch is now being perpetrated ;" and he denounced " the vile attempts of the > English ministers against the religion of which ho was a minister . " The Very Reverend Father Russell , O . P ., in a temper which suggested the idea that the letters appended to his name , may have some connexion with the . celebrated " row , " proposed another resolution , declaring that " an attack upon the temporal dominions of the Church is not so much a violation , however unjust , of the supremo

      rights of a most august and venerable temporal u ruler as a sacrilegious invasion of the Church , and an injury inflicted on the whole Catholic body throughout the world . " TJbie Rev . Canon MoOjvbe threatened Louis Napoleon with the fate of Soleuous and Hcliodorua if he did not sustain the old gentleman on the Seven Hills , and the proceedings were wound up by the adoption of an address to his Holiness embodying the sentiments desoribed . Now this may- be taken as a fair specimen of a movement which is going on all over Europe with more or less ¦ vi gour , and one objcot of which is to frighten and compel the Emperor

      of the French to be the slave and tool of priestly arrogance and Jesuit malice- In the towns of JFrance the Ultramontane party will achieve no grea t success , but they know the empire rests upon the ignorant peasantry , ' and those they hope to inislead . In a political point of view , the struggle is one of the most important that has ever agitated Europe , and upon its issue depends the continuance of the Anglo-French alliance—a thing impossible if the Ultramontane party guided the Government of France . No one ; can tell -what the difficulties of the Imperial Government may be , but it is certain that a large portion of the French clergy would dislike that subordination to Rome , for effecting which in his own dominion Dr

      Cullen lauds Francis Joseph , and we cannot feelieve that Louis Napoleon will consent to end his career disgraced in the eyes of intelligent Europe , and tied to the apron strings of the Pope .

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      REGENCY OF PRINCE CARIGNANO . Affairs in Central Italy appear within the last few days to have given some healthy signs of animation and progress . The dormant stagnation which , to a cursory spectator , seemed to envelope the political state of the Duchies , has been exchanged for something like a popular and legislative attempt at vigorous self-assertion . The Regency of Prince Carignano has been proposed and aereed to in Modena . In the Roma < nia the

      National Assembly has also voted for him and invested him with full powers ; and by this time the subject has been discussed at Florence and most probably decided affirmatively . We are glad to report this energetic movement because it is a proof that the Italians are beginning to feel that they must act for themselves and allow no foreign power , whether openly adverse or professedly friendly , to dictate tbeir rules of action . According to the report given of the interview between the Tuscan deputation and the Emperor Napoleon III ., which took place at St . Cloud on

      the 16 th ult ., his Majesty without hesitation , and decidedly refused his sanction to the proposed regency of tlie Prince . The gentlemen composing ^ the deputation courteously but firmly intimated that they should not hesitate to oppose the imperial wishes as far as their influence and ability extended and the announcement of the voted reprency , is a proof that they have acted up to their resolutions . The poor French Emperor ' s position sit tlie present time is really most embarrassing . The Peace of Villafranca seems to have placed him in a veritable cal de sac from which he has no means of

      emerging . It is one of the peculiarities of his policy that it p leases no one , though this , we may well conceive , would trouble him little if he could but see any solution to the questions raised by himself when he began war with Austria , calculated to win him cither credit or material advantage . Let but the Italians persevere in the independent course upon which they seem now to have entered , and to which the English press lias been all along so strenuously urging them , and they will defeat the scheme by which France hus sought , even since the first Napoleon ' s time , to keep Italy divided , in order that she might experience no clicolc to her political and commercial greatness l > y tho existence of a strong and united notion upon her

      frontiers . The Pope himself ridicules tho idea ol the Confederation as proposed by LouiH Napoleon , and is indisposed to become a party to it . It is sheer folly to talk of Venice becoming u purely national province wfrth an Italian army , u separate repreacntution / and' the establishment of Muutua and Peschiora as federal fortresses aoeordmg to the letter of tho Emperor to the King of Piedmont . If the views of Austria wore roally so diuintereetea she would do far more wisoly to givo up Venotifl with Lombardy ; but that sho iullv intends to repossess herself of the latter beforo . long , is "lo st significantly proclaimed by her retention ol tne iron orown . It in perfectly monstrous t . lint lwumont should be compelled to pay over an immense

      sum beforo she can obtain posueeaion of a provinw actually won from Austria , foot by foot , nt t » o point of tho eword ^ and then bo deprived ot u » 0 regalia and . insignia of tho torritory—tho ~ vovy title doqdu , so to speak , necessary to attest hor right of possession . Aooording to present ' l p . " anoos the Venetian soil itself will soon bo all tnau will rgmnin to thb Einporor Francis tloflopn-Tho inhabitants are leaving in alarming mimbBW . It is stated that not fewer than 13 , 000 young « w »

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      lO-ft THE LEADE 1 [ No . 503 . Nov . 12 ^ 185 9 ^ JL ^ OU ¦ ¦ ¦ ¦ ¦ ¦ ' __ ^ _ ^ —~

  • Citation
    • Leader (1850-1860), Nov. 12, 1859, page 1250, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2320/page/14/