COMMERCE AND INDUSTRY.
The commercial condition of Great Britain throughout the year was favourable. The railway speculations of previous years exercised a prejudicial influence upon the money market, and “calls” were severely felt; but the foreign commerce of the country increased rapidly, and the revenue was in a state which tended to preserve public confidence, and showed that the resources of the nation were unimpaired notwithstanding so many recent calamities. Free trade began already largely to tell upon the great interests which it affected, and justified its advocates and promoters.
The farming interest was, however, distressed; free trade in corn had deranged their habits, and rendered alterations necessary in their customary procedure as to the landowners, their farms, and the markets which they were reluctant to adopt. The landlords were unwilling to concede lower rents, and kept up those which were brought about by war prices during the great struggle with France. Hence a protectionist agitation pervaded the country, unsettling the minds of the farmers, inspiring false hopes, irritating the trading classes, producing counter agitation, and by all these means inflicting injury upon the country.
THE CHOLERA.
The cholera, which broke out at the close of 1848, slumbered during the winter and spring, 1849, and then ravaged the country, continued to afflict, more or less, during this year also. The mitigation and removal of the disease during the year enabled medical and scientific men to give more calm and undisturbed investigation as to its phenomena. Some of the laws which characterized its advance, prevalence, and removal, were discovered and brought before the public; but the cause or source of the pestilence still remained a mystery, and no specific treatment was discovered. It was remarked that it appeared generally in the same districts, towns, streets, houses, and some persons affirmed, even apartments, which had entered in the year 1832.
PAPAL AGGRESSION.
The most striking home incident of the year, was the event which went generally under the name of papal aggression. England, since the Reformation, had been exceedingly jealous of any exercise of authority by the Roman pontiff within her dominions, and in consequence of this feeling it had been deemed politic at Rome to govern the Roman Catholics of England by vicars apostolic. For some years, however, the church and court of Rome had been encouraged by the Romanist tendencies of the “High Anglican” and Puseyite parties in the English church. Many clergymen and laymen went over to Rome, especially of the former, and very many more were known to be inclined to follow. It was also alleged that a large body of the clergy and gentry were favourable to a union of the Church of England with the Church of Rome. In many of the churches, the communion-table was turned into an altar; lighted candles were employed in the daytime, crucifixes were placed above what was called the altar, and the clergy practised genuflexions and intonations which were supposed to be peculiar to Roman Catholicism. All these things prepared the minds of the people, who were in the main attached to Evangelism, and were steady in their Protestantism, to meet any aggressive action on the part of Rome with anger, and even exasperation. An occasion arose to put this to the test. The pope issued “a brief,” constituting an episcopal hierarchy in England instead of the vicars apostolic. One archiepiscopal and twelve episcopal sees were created, and the territorial limits of the province and the sees were marked out. Dr. Wiseman, elevated to the rank of cardinal, was appointed Archbishop of Westminster. The language of the brief was arrogant in the extreme, and literally outraged the feelings and the honour of the English people. It was followed by a document still more offensive, written by Cardinal Wiseman, which he termed a pastoral, and dated “Out of the Flaminian Gate at Rome.” This was addressed to the faithful about to become, and whom he treated as though they had already become, his subjects. The arrogance of this document was such as to move the Protestant feeling of the country, and to awaken a spirit of hostility to the Church of Rome which seemed unlikely ever to be quenched. The irritation created among the Protestant population was greatly increased by the tone in which the cardinal and his newly-created bishops addressed their followers upon their appointment to their new offices. The cardinal adopted the style of a prince, commencing with the royal “We,” his authority to “rule over” the province to which he was nominated. His vindication of the course pursued by the pontiff was a bitter sneer at English and Protestant institutions, mingled with an insulting defiance of the established authorities of the British nation. He reminded his hearers and the whole British nation (whom he knew would at such a crisis peruse his address) that he had no authority in Westminster, or in Westminster Abbey, by law, and that he would still pay the entrance fee to go into Westminster Abbey like other liege subjects, resign himself meekly to the guidance of the beadle, and “listen without rebuke when he pointed out to his admiration detestable monuments, or show a hole in the wall for a confessional.” “He would still visit the shrine of St. Edward, and meditate on the olden times when the church would fill without a coronation, and multitudes hourly worshipped without a service.”
The popish Bishop of Birmingham, Dr. Ullathorn, went beyond his master in boasting, and uttered the following blasphemous address:—“The people of England, who for many years had been separated from the see of Rome, were about, of their own free will, to be added to the Holy Church. He did not recollect any people on earth, but those of Great Britain, who, having rejected the religion of God, were again restored to the bosom of the Church. The hierarchy was restored, the grave was opened, and Christ was coming out.”