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Northern Star (1837-1852), 6th November 1852, Edition 2 of 2, Page 1, REVIEW OP THE WEEK. _n

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      -J Til 1 Growl Rf Jmfod Tfagm, 4xm Ttwb,...

      -j til growl rf jMfod Tfagm , 4 xM ttwb , ni fopfe Cjpitirit .

      No. 13.-New Series.] London, Saturday, N...

      No . 13 .-New Series . ] LONDON , SATURDAY , NOVEMBER 6 , 1852 . [ Price Fourpence Halfpenny .

      Review Op The Week. _N

      REVIEW OP THE WEEK . _ n

      The Great Event Of The Week In Home Poli...

      The great event of the week in home politics , is the Manchester }? ree Trade banquet . It has been heralded hy many a trumpet blast , and was certainly a great exhibition of power . The old Chairman of the League was ; there , with Mr . Bright , Mr . Cohden , HP / a bj the score , and a host of minor celebrities . It was a representation of the most powerful political class in the empire , which , if it does not exhibit genius , has plenty of shrewd business-like talent , no small quantity o f tact , and plenty of money to back it . The speeches may be

      divided into two parts ; some very natural glorification over the past , and equally glowing anticipations for the future . Out of the reach of the brilliant sarcasms of Disraeli , the . speakers were quite at their ease and settled the future of the Derby administration—the country and themselves , quite to their own satisfaction . If there are any qualities which the Manchester meii lack , they certainly are not determination and bashfulness . They generally form very definite opinions , and are not apt to modify them to please anybody , and the point they have finally settled now , is , that the Derb yites must formally renounce protection . Forewarned they say is forearmed , and Mr .

      Disraeli has fair notice , that " will he , nil ! be , " he must , within two short months , ; do homage to the genius of Free Trade- —cast off the last rag ! of an old policy , propitiate the shade of the late Sir Robert Peel , and do penance for liis past misdeeds . It is rumoured , on what looks something like authority , that the cunning Benjamin has determined upon forestalling his antagonists , and leaving them little ground for complaint , by voluntarily reading his recantation , and accepting the situation as it is—but every body suspects that all this will he done with a mental reservation , and a determination to make the Cotton Lords smoke for it by and bye .

      Supposing that Mr . Disraeli does take this course , the question arises as to what will be the policy of her Majesty ' s opposition . To suppose that Cobden and Co . will be content to let the proud aristocracy they have already beaten remain in power , is to imagine that the lion and Iamb will lie down together ; and to indulge in the animation that the Whig clique will be happy until they regain office , is to dream of the leopard changing his spots or the negro his hue . So ; * let Mr . Disraeli do what he will , he is doomed to sustain an

      attack upon his position devised with subtlety and carried out with spiteful determination and perseverance ; and this will be the order of the attack : —If Mr . Disraeli does not renounce his old opinions , of . course he is unfit for office , and a majority can be mustered to turn him out ; - —if he does , then it will be argued that he is inconsistent , and not to be trusted . Either way , the judgment , has already been decided on against him , and choose which horn of the dilemma he will , either of them will be sharp enough to impale him upon .

      A perfect contrast to the speeches at Manchester , is the oration delivered by Mr . Macaulay to the good , folk of Edinburgh . At the one place it was plain business-like talk , involving change ; at the other , the ornate sentences , the elegantly turned periods , and the eloquent perorations of the most accomplished writer of his day . Between the two styles there is no more comparison than between chalk and cheese . The advantage there is all on the side of Mr . Macaulay ; but in matter , the business men leave him far behind . The latter do look to the furore , — nob the ultimate future of the people , but that immediate future of the , growing omnipotence of money to which their

      interests point , and in which their hopes centre , while the historian is hopelessly buried in the past , which he has busied himself in recording . The mind of Mr . Macaulay is like an unfinished chronicle , which has been brought down no farther than 1832 . He is a Whig of the Reform Bill school , and his most glowing anticipations are that Lord John Bussell will be reinstated * That is , only another illustration of the fact , that the general mind of the country oftenperhaps always—advances further than the great intellects who , drawing their light from the past , stand passively before the dark curtain which hides the future from the present , without attempting to lift one of its folds , or striving to discover the mysteries it conceals .

      Of more importance in a moral point of view than either of the great displays at Manchester and Edinburgh is a modest little report of a meeting at Manchester—Lord Goderichin the chair , for the purpose of promoting the re-productive employment of paupers , and giving legal facilities to parishes of renting land for that purpose This idea , if we recollect rightly , was first attempted to he carried out by the guardians of the Stoke union , in Staffordshire , who employed their boys upon a few acres , and found that , independent of the advantage of rearing up industrious men instead of lazy ones , shewed by their published balance-sheet that it was actually commerciall profitableWe believe there is a statute unrepealed ,

      authorizy . ing the authorities of each parish to take a certain quantity of land , and perhaps before new laws are asked for , it would . be as well to enquire about , and test , the capabilities of the old one . The quarterly return of the Begistrar-Generai has authenticated an impression which has been for some time prevalent in wellinformed quarters . It is now certain that for the first time for a long period the population of the country is undergoing a rapid decrease , amounting in the past quarter , to no less than sixty thousand persons . The excess of births over deaths has been more than fifty thousand—rather a less number than at former corresponding periods ,

      but about 120 , 000 people have left this country , principally for Australia . This English Exodus shews no signs of ceasing . The repubiveness of poverty at home , and the attractions of wealth abroad ,

      The Great Event Of The Week In Home Poli...

      will probably swell the tide to a still greater , height ; and very likely , two years more will leave-us nearly two millions minus . The Times tells us that the effect will be to assimilate the condition of England to that of a new country . It is astonishing how men who produce such fine sentences as The Times writers , can bungle thoughts and facts as they do . Our circumstances are , and must be , essentially different from those which exist in a young land . The distinction is as great as between the old man and the the young child . We have traditions to which conservative minds cling with tenacity , old institutions which the statesmen in a

      position to bid for power , are not disposed to do more than modify , and classes of society widely separated . But just as the difference is between the old and the young , so there is an analogy , which obtains in the case of those who are entering , and those who are passing out of life . It may be , that the decreased population , will change the nature of the relations between capital and labour , deducting something of the overgrown strength of the former , and diminishing the pitiful weakness of the latter ; but even that advantage is threatened . The Times , a few weeks back , told us that Ave should never want people in the old world . That if Englishmen emigrate from their own shores , Germans , Frenchmen , Dutchmen , and Belgians ,

      will be only too glad to come to supply their places . That would alter the relations between capital and labour with a vengeance , by introducing labourers used to a lower standard of living , to pull down , wages yet further , and render still more hopeless the case of those who are not so fortunate as to make their escape to the antipodes . The Times , however , has perhaps reconsidered its former proposition * The emigration inwards might include a large proportion of red republicans— "demoralized socialists , " and the disconcontented spirits of Europe , who might make it difficult to preserve " peace and order , " without the employment of more efficient weapons than the constable ' s staff ..

      In 1854 , the Indian Charter wilh come under the consideration of the legislature , and parliament wilt be free to deprive the East India Directors of the government of the East , or to modify their power . A committee was appointed to examine into the subject , and has published its report , in one those enormous blue books which nobody reads : out of the mass of 1500 pages , however , the evidence of Lord EllenboROUGH has been picked out . That n « ble lord , who was ennobled by the Court of Directors , is for diminishing their power ; but the most remarkable opinion he ventures upon is

      against the reduction of the salaries . He says broadly , that if the Hindoos were a cultivated people , they would drive us out of their country . Conceal the truth as we may , there is little doubt that his lordship spoke the truth , and if so , that is the best of all commentaries upon the beneficence and popularity of our sway , and the wisdom with which the Directors have exercised their power . Judged by that test , the legislature ought to put an end to the sway of Leadenhall-street ; but interest pervades a House of Commons , representing abuses instead of the whole people , and is rampant in the House of Lords , and we opine that the monopoly of the Corporation of Merchants is safe for the present .

      The Crystal Palace is making a stir among the Mawworms of the Church . Some of the bigots have been preaching and speaking against the Temple of ths people . They view it , not only for itself , but for the effect it may have upon the public mind generally . It is argued that if * one Company may get up a great Sunday Carnival , other Companies finding it pay , may arise to do the same , and then the people will be seduced from the Church altogether , or go there in the morning , to forget the words they hear , among statues , fountains , and gardens in the afternoon . Well , we suppose that is nearly the fact , but cannot these gentlemen ( reverend by courtesy ) ,

      see what a censure the truth they admit passes upon their own conduct and capability . They have the hig hest and widest of themes , the noblest and loftiest of motives in their hands , so they themselves say , and yet they cannot use them with sufficient effect to compete with a fountain , or to prevent a marble nymph from effacing them . It is strange , too , that they labour under a delusion that the people are not yet estranged from their ministry . Beally , it would be worth their while some fine Sunday , to leave their pulpits and take a peep at the thronged steam-boat wharfs , the thronged railway terminiand the beset omnibus stand . If their sanctity did not hold

      , them back , they might extend their visits , say to Cremorne , Battersea , Blackheath , and the suburban tea gardens , and then they might be less fearful of the Cyrstal Palace wresting from them the dominion they have already lost , and either make some worthy effort to regain it , or find cause for rejoicing with us , that if the people will , escaping from their dullness , seek for amusement , they will find it among scenes , and surrounded by accessories and associations , divested of impurity , and fertile in suggestions of beauty and grace . If the priests can attain to that point , there is some hope that they may yet exercise an influence founded on usefulness .

      Talking of the clergy , there is a report that the Dean and Chapter of St . Paul's are exhibiting a more than clerical greediness . One might have thought that the funeral of the Duke might have excited feelings sufficiently strong to overlay the greediness of their order ; yet it is said that the magnificence of the ceremony will be materially diminished by their claiming , as their own , the fittings , galleries , & c . Once on consecrated ground , they become the property of the church , just as the remains of the olden sacrifices used to become the perquisites of the priests . It is all in keeping with their other doings .

      The Great Event Of The Week In Home Poli...

      Those who have turned their cathedral into a twopenny puppet-show may well take toll upon the passage through the portals of the departed warrior . A new era has arrived in railway engines . An engine has been constructed for the London and North-Western Company , capable of dragging trains at the rate of seventy miles an . hour . With wellmanaged lines , this would be a great advance ; hub as the trains are regulated now , the greater chance there will be of collisions endangering the lives and limbs of the passengers .

      The Chartists used , according to The Times , to be famous for window-breaking . Whenever their processions appeared , plate-glass was said to be in danger ; and upon the strength of their reputation for smashing , they were ranked among "the dangerous classes . " Well , if window-breaking be a qualification for that title , it is applicable to others , if we may credit the police reports . It seems that the gentlemen who ride to and fro on the tops of omnibuses are in the habit of carrying air guns , probably to qualify themselves , by

      practice , for local rifle clubs , and try their skill upon the tradesmen ' s ^ ymdows . They are far more dangerous and dreaded than the Chartists , for the damage they commit cannot be saddled upon the county . The project of the week is Mr . "Pearson ' s" for a railway terminus in the heart of the city , on the side of the old Fleet prison . The valley between the hills of Holborn and Snow is to he raised upon a viaduct , beneath which the line is to run . Sir James Duke has allied himself to the scheme , and Rothschild and other capitalists are understood to have promised their assistance .

      Parliament met on the 4 th , but it is understood that the speech will not be delivered before the 11 th . The annals of labour tin ? week show a disturbance in the printing trade . The plain facts are these . Some time ago , the Morning Post , which preaches protection to British industry , showed how it would protect it by discharging all their compositors to make room for cheaper hands . The example thus set "by the Tory organ was ¦ not long to remain without an imitator in the ranks of the "liberal " press . The advocate of Louis Napoleon , —the Evening Sun—gave notice to the 32 men and the overseer employed upon it , for the

      purpose of doing as the Post had done . There was no complaint against the men , —no charge of insubordination or inefficiency ; they did not ask for better wages . The whole and sole object of those who pretend to be the friends of the working man , was to cheapen labour . It cannot even be presumed that the earnings of the men were excessive , they not averaging more than 36 s . per week . Even if that could be asserted , no offer of accommodation , no opportunity for negotiation was afforded the workmen ; they were discharged—that was all . The compositors have published a temperate address , which we give in another column , and in which their grievances are clearl y stated . The equal right of the proprietors of the Post and Sun to perpetrate

      injustice and tyranny of this nature is clear . The law recognises the "do as you like with your own" doctrine of the political economists ; ; but there are moral crimes committed by the strong against the comparatively weak , and , as between the compositors and their employers ,, the wrong is the more flagrant as the trade has long been regulated 1 by a scale of prices recognized by both master and men . We cannot t think that the compositors will allow their fellow-men to be oppressed i without help , and such instances as these only enforce the growing g conviction , that the time is coming when all those who live by labour ir must either sink to the condition of serfs , or form one great union » n which would render it too dangerous to be attempted .

      In Ireland , the Six-mile-bridge tragedy is being mtjde prominentot in the law courts . Proceedings for libel are pending against Mr . ! r . Wallace , the proprietor of the Anglo Celt , who charged the men of of the 31 st regiment with wantonly butchering the people , and asserteded that the regiment had formerly been deprived of its facings for cow-wardice . The Attorney-G-eneral has moved before Judge Cromptonpn , to quash the Coroner ' s Inquisitions , upon the ground that there wasras not any evidence to support them . The Court directed notice to be be

      given to the next of kin , after which the matter will be argued , anunc most probably the verdicts will be set aside . We have little to recorcorc of the Sister Isle , except that the religious equality people are stir ; tir ring themselves . The Exodus still keeps up its stream , and K ' nVng " County has furnished another example of agrarian outrage , in whichicll eight or ten ruffians broke into the cottage of a bailiff , maltreatment his wife and family , and nearly beat him to death .

      The American mail tells us that General Scott was makino- despespee rate efforts to win . the favour of the electors . Among other meaneam to which he resorted , he recently told a tale which has called forth somsomi notice . He says that when he was in Mexico , the people of influencencs there offered to put him at the head of affairs- —to place all the poweowee in his hands , and to guarantee him a million of dollars . Th Thli General adds , that his love for his native country and her free instinstbi tutions prevented him from accepting the offer .

      While the preparations for the Empire are proceeding , signs us < < an ominous nature for the future of Louis Napoleon are making the the 2 appearance . From time to time there have been misty rumours urs Military conspiracies , but whatever of truth there was in them , wa , van smothered and concealed—obnoxious regiments were removed to tlto thl departments , or to Africa , and the faithful who remained , rewardeardee Kow it is said that an extensive military plot has been discovered ; red . Paris , and that more than a hundred soldiers and sub-officers has ban been put into prison . The affair has been kept as private as poss poss ble , and the details are involved in considerable mystery . •» . .

  • Citation
    • Northern Star (1837-1852), Nov. 6, 1852, page 1, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/ns/issues/ns2_06111852/page/1/