On this page

• Departments (1)
  • 
• Text (3)

  Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.

  • 

    Untitled Article

  • 

    Untitled Article

  • 

    THE PROFESSED POLITICIAN.,

• Transcript

  • Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.

    Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.

    Untitled Article

    end , the greatest social disasters , Thcymay , as many of them do -ipprove of it . because they are : unacquainted with the history of ' yiii ' v money , They may rely on the regulations , very stringent in appearance , to restrict the issue , but such regulations have never stood . the test of trial ., Even in England , now , where all sorts of p recautions are taken , our State paper money , at one tiW greatly in excess , ami at another , greatly in deficiency-of the wantsTof the coimuunity , inflicts continual injury on the public . It has occasionally caused such injuries . through the two hundred

    years at least from the first establishment of the "B ank monopoly , that it has been growing to its present condition . Here , the public have been educated , as it was slowly and successively tampered with ,-to use it . Here , all the transactions of commerce being adapted to it , reduce the evils of State paper currency to a iuhiiiuuni . Here , the lolly of the Leg islature in imitating the Governments of France and Russia in establishing paper promises to pay as a leal tender , or actual payment , has been neutralised by the habits of the community . It lias-used with advantage the promises to of individuals ,. and has counteracted and kept in

    pay cheek a . State paper currency . India is to have a full-blovyn svsfciu of such currency at ' onco imposed on if . Neither the intelligent voice of . Mr ! Newmarch lifted against it , nor the numerous other intellig ent voices that will be lifted , against it whenever its nature is fully known , can now be heeded . It will be . forced into circulation , and there will be neither a knowledge of its nature nor the habit of using it to keep a check on the

    coiners . , . . . . _ . UVjnny admit that Sir Ciiaiu . es V * ood and Mr , Wilson mean well , though we may suspect they liord' . y take cognizance of their-own motives ; but- the French and' Kussian authorities also meant well , and yd they broug ht innumerable evils on tne people who confided in tlieir " state paper nioiiey . Be the system practicable Or otherwise , likely to be beneficial or not , thehejght of wisdom or the depth of ' fully , it is equally despotic , to sot and

    about establishing it without iirs ' t consulting the people Parliament of England . The same despotic power which establishes the restrictions may sweep them away , and then Sir Citaim . es Wood ' s stale paper currency will be no better than the assignats of revolutionary Frniicc . Independently of all consideration ¦ of consequences ., we call ' attention to the proceeding , because it is by no means , a solitary example of highhanded despotism by officials , who aught to . be , but in no sense . unpractically responsible for their acts . .

    Untitled Article

    372 The Leader and Saturday Analyst . . . [¦ ApjuvSI , 18 .. G 0

    Untitled Article

    AFTE . R a short holiday we arc going to have another batch of Parliamentary debates , and it is somewhat melancholy to think that the country , as a whole , caves little or nothing for the forthcoming perfovinnnqc . Particular interests are alive to what is going on , mul anxious to turn legislation to a good profit . Papcrmakcrs desire to protect their trade ; wine merchants look to the details of the new propositions for assessing their commodity ; coal-owners , iron-masters , and cotton-spinners have also on eye to business ;—but in each case it is the profit of the individual ' shop or mill or counting-house that commands attention , and public interests arc little thought of by M . IVs , or oven by the public themselves . Dissenters support Sir John TketaW y rather from habit than from zeal ; and those who have , called themselves " fteformers , " or " Liberals , " and find the nickname useful for electioneering purposes , « fleet a little interest in Lord John Ttussur / i / s puny measure for electoral chmige . People hrc tired of the •' ¦ designs of France ; " even Cardinal Wisf ,-ma « can' get up no into vest about a Pot ' K who can do no better than carry out Mr . Sii \ ni > y ' s theory of the purely derivative and second-hand nature of the profane swearing of modern times ; the Snvoy question , like the savoy cabbage , ia passing out of senson ; Mr . Biiyan Kino and his chuidh-nu'lUnnt are ceasing to draw attention , and things in general avo as tint as if the " last man" were his own last " public , " and had the felicity of making his last spueeli entirely to himself . Seeking for some object of interest , wo come upon " Mr . Beunal Oshoknk on Public Afl'nirs , " and rend his oration to see whnt n gentleman well up in electioneering rhetoric would have to say to his enlifrhtoncd constituents of Liskenrd , which has a population not quite- big enough to form a congregation for Mr . Sl'Uuoeon nt the Surrey Mall " . Mr . O ' snonNE does not speak with tho powoi' of spuming jonniea , nor doca ho utter tho voice ' of winds . Ho is neither a concentration of railway , nn ox tract of wntor , nor nn essence of gns . No " intorost" looks up to him , and ho excites no more 1 " linn a passing sinilo . Ho is one of the very small class who make politics a profession , and lie dooa nothing to rniso the chamber or tho inllucnco of the occupation in which ho has embarked his capital of brains . Omitting tlw noble persons

    | who are born to do us the honour of ruling us , we have reinark-1 ably few men who adopt the business of Professors of Public i -Affairs , and aspire to be ranked as statesmen from the range ot their information , the accuracy of their reasoning , or the value ot iheir suggestions for social progress and beneficent change . Mr . Osboune has treated politics as a jaunty trade , and , " in his small way , done something to lower confidence in Liberals not spe-¦ daily attached to a great interest , and speaking-according to its ! behests . While ; Mr . Osbou . xe calls . himself : a Liberal , and remains a member of parliament , he will sit on one side of the ¦ . . House of Commons , and his oratorical , peas will occasionall y be heard rattling against the other .. Were he to change . his views and position , " the aforesaid peas would have a new incidence ,, and iill the earnest a flairs of society go on just the same . A Laving been Secretary to the Admiralty , Mr . Osjsoune had opportunities of learning something of its management , and might have put himself in a position to indicate reforms , and have something better to say than that the " estimates were , enormous , ' and : that such ' expenditure - '" ought not to exist . " . II is constituents : were , benevolent ' enough to cheer these sentiments , , as if such vague ! generalities were net part of the . stock in trade of every ] voiitieal pedlar who goes forth into , the world-with his pack of deceptions : wares . Upon tlie Reform question the honourable , gentleman was- equally . unsatisfactory ; Ik : called it . an ¦ ' awkward / qnesi tion , " and ' so it is in other , places ' besides Liskrard . H ¦ ¦ ¦ lnx < } become so because it has been traded upon too long ; nfird i \\\ u > tlie sore leg that will never get well , as . a fraudulent nieniis cif ' attracting sympathy and obtaining political relief . .. ; When Mr . Osbuune tells us that ' ' the Conservatives having come to the level , of the AVliigi ? , the Whigs are obliged to be i something more , " he mis-states ' - . historical , facts , inasuiueh . as i Lord Joil . v -JiussiMJ / s earlier bills were furtheivg . oi . ng measure .-j than that which heat present puts forth . We have no objection to his comparing . Mr . Jiujgut to the "' " jk'nieia Boy , "' and liave ! always felt that gentleman ' s ^ denunciations of aristoeraey wnv . i based .-upon n- desire to make cottonocracy supreme ; but wliat i . -oanbe more silly than , to say that " every man might elevate ! hi in self , and become a ¦ member of that aristocniey . " The army and the bar open I lie . doors of the peerage to a I ' cw ; but no . man ' . uueonnecred with . tin Court or tho aristocracy gel . j a fair chance in the ¦ military profession , and subserviency to a party will do i inore than legal . acquirements to obtain a woolsack for a chair . AVerc a num . to distinguish himself as a great lrgal reformer , 'like i Jeue-MY XhiXTirAir , he would be more likely to be elected . King of the Cannibal Islands than to find his genius and -labours rewarded by a British coronet . Science conducts no oiic beyond ! the boundaries that separate the coninioiuir from . ilie peer . Art never lends ' to precincts too sacred -for genius to profane . Literature was tho pretext for a single elevation lo the upper ranks ; but everybody knew the reward was . to the Whig I partisan ' , aiul that MACACM-iT would have waited long eiiouyh for a peerage if he had written in the bolder and iVcer spirit of ' ¦ Cahlyle . The highest exercise of human faculties for tht . general good is not the way to the . House of Lords ; - but money enn get its owner tiicre , if he was lusver known to employ tlie power of the millionaire in favour of anything wiser or belter than the ruling classes find it their interest to desire . No philosophical thinker can desire to witness the exclusiw predominance of tho commercial and manufacturing eluss , bur . the peers might as well consider whether their objection lo take into their ranks the intellectual leaders of tin : country , who- arc , after all , its real aristocracy , is likely to win for . the . ii institution permanent regard . To ! Miv Osbousk it may bo all that is desirable , but politicians who neither represent interests nor ideas enn throw little weight into any scale . -Mr . Oshoknk characterised Lord John Russnu . ' s Heform Bill as " clumsy , " nnd complained that it was not in reality a reform bill at n \\ , as it did not deal with the evils of the present system ; but he did not tell his constituents what ho hud ( lone to remedy its defects . IVy a few smart sentences he sought to buy the advantage of being- supposed anxious for souu thing better , and when the time for notion comes ho can avoid all combination ? that might bring about n more satisfactory result . One of tho chief faults of our electoral system is that it represent a nothing but interests , imd entirely fails to give prominence to ideas . Tf every interest were represented , this might not matter very much , as ideas can get nccess to , and ultimately comiiiiuul , tho world , outside tho legislative doors 5 hut the fact , is , only very rich interests havo -a cluinco of being heard , and'there i « danger that the wovkmg-chissoa will bo taught to consider the House ot ' Commons as simply a representation of tho feelings , opinions , nnd profits of other ranks iu tho social sonic . AVo want , u now nud popular order of men , who will grow into statesmen from u love of whnt should bo a noble profession . Tho existing system gives us hiudoranco instead of Jiolp . Tho Whigs aro willing to

    The Professed Politician.,

    Til E PitOFESSET ) POLITICI . VN \

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), April 21, 1860, page 372, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2344/page/8/