Love, the foundation of the public weal,
As of the peace of houses—Love, whose breach
Sundered two bands of common race and speech,
Whose rankling wounds on each side will not heal:
Therefore be warned in time, let none conceal
Brotherly yearnings, God-sent, each for each.
Pure human sympathies are high of reach,
For the realities which they reveal
Teach us to live in earnest; give us faith,
Godward, as well as human: none can say,
"I will love only that which I have seen."
By faith's lamp, fed with hope, the wise have been
Led to the land where, as the Tarsian saith,
Love rules when Hope and Faith are passed away.
H. G. K.
India, 1851.
AUTUMN POLITICS.
Rarely, during the autumnal season of the year, is any very vivid interest displayed in political matters. This is both natural and wholesome. The soldier, after a hard campaign, requires rest and recreation; and those whose destiny it is to occupy themselves with public affairs and their conduct, are all the better for a short respite from these absorbing toils. So, after the close of the Parliamentary Session, our legislators betake themselves to the provinces or the Continent, to the skirts of Ben Nevis, or to the sequestered valleys of Switzerland, with all the glee of schoolboys who have escaped from the magisterial yoke. Who can blame them? The mountain breeze is assuredly more fresh and salubrious than the loaded atmosphere of St Stephen's; the sound of the purling brook is more grateful to the ear than the croakings of Joseph Hume; and the details of a restaurant's bill of fare more interesting than the ingenious statistics of Mr Wilson of Westbury. Nobody is sorry when the clattering of the great machine of Parliament is silenced. It is bad enough to be compelled to peruse the debates during the months of winter and spring, without continuing the ordeal throughout the rest of the year. We cannot live always in a state of excitement. Scully and Keogh are splendid and soul-searching orators; but we would as lieve submit to have all our dishes seasoned with ether, as allow our nerves to be daily agitated by the roll of their irresistible eloquence. We love John Bright, and are fascinated by the humour of Fox, yet we can find it in our hearts to part company with them for a season. In autumn the towns are torpid. Every one who can, endeavours to escape from them; and to judge from the hurry on rail and river, you would conclude that at least one-half of the population of these islands is on the move. Subjects which a few months before engrossed the public attention are now mentioned with a luxurious languor, and never ardently discussed. Few people know or care what Cardinal Wiseman may be doing. A porter with a load of grouse is a more interesting object than Lord John Russell, even were he laden with the draught of his new Reform Bill; and it is a matter of total indifference to the million whether Earl Grey has gone to Howick or to Kamschatka. The only class of men who remain indefatigably political are the popularity hunters, more especially such of them as require a little coopering for their somewhat leaky reputations. Old Joe sets off on a reforming tour to the northern burghs, hoping here and there to pick up a stray burgess ticket. Sir James Graham will go any distance to receive the hug of fraternity from a provost, and to add to his chaplet such fresh leaves of laurel as are in the gift of a generous town council. Lord Palmerston undertakes to keep the electors of Tiverton in good humour, and favours them with a funny discourse upon all manner of topics, excepting always the projected measure of reform, on which he judiciously keeps his thumb. These, however, are mere interludes, and few people care about them. Most sincerely to be pitied, at this season of the year, is the condition of the London journalists. However scanty be the crop of events, however dry the channels of public interest, they must find subjects for their leaders. Each day there is a yawning gap of white paper to be filled; a topic to be selected and discussed; and an insatiable devil to be laid. It was popularly believed on the Border that Michael Scott was saddled with an infernal servitor, to whom he was compelled to assign daily a sufficient modicum of work, under the penalty, in case of failure, of a forced visit to Pandemonium. Quite as bad is the predicament of the journalist. The printer's demon is ever at his elbow; nor dare he attempt to escape. It is not surprising if sometimes our unhappy brothers should be reduced to the last extremity. Generally, nay universally, they are a kind-hearted race of men; yet no one who hears their complaints during a season of unusual stagnation would set them down as philanthropists. Their aspirations are after revolutions, murders, casualties—anything, in short, which can furnish them with a topic for a good stirring article. All manufacturers, except the dealers in devil's-dust and shoddy, admit that there is no possibility of constructing a passable fabric out of inferior raw material. Whatever be the capabilities of the artisan, or the excellence of his tools, he cannot do without a subject to work upon. Facts, according to the approved doctrine of the public press, are of two kinds—real and imagined. The distinction is as wide as that which lies between history and romance. If the first do not emerge in sufficient value or importance, recourse must be had to the second, provided nothing be advanced for which there is not some apparent colour. The position and prospects of parties is always a safe autumnal theme. Some paragraph is sure to appear, some letter to be published, some pamphlet written, or some speech delivered, from which ingenuity can extract matter of startling commentary. One while, supposed differences in the Cabinet are made the subject of conjecture and discussion, though where the Cabinet is no one can tell, the members thereof being notoriously so scattered that no two of them are within a hundred miles of each other. Lord John Russell's resignation has of late years become a regular autumnal event. We look for it as confidently as the housekeeper expects her annual supply of damsons. No one is rash enough to aver that Sir Charles Wood intends voluntarily to resign; but somehow or other it happens that his colleagues are annually seized in September with a burning desire to kick him out—a species of phrenzy which only lasts until the return of the colder weather. We really forget how often Lord Clarendon has been announced as the coming Premier. If there be any faith in prophecy, his time must be nigh at hand.
It was, we believe, confidently anticipated on the part of the Liberal journals, that the present autumn would prove an exception to the general rule, by furnishing a more than average crop of topics acceptable to the public ear. After such a dreary lapse of time, prosperity was expected to arrive about the middle of 1851, and that event would of itself justify the expenditure of many columns of pœans. True, there had been various attempts made at intervals, during the last three or four years, to persuade the public that the coy nymph had either arrived or was arriving on the British shores; and some journals went so far as to discharge a royal salute in honour of her supposed landing. But the mistake was soon discovered. If the agriculturists were discontented, the manufacturers were depressed, and the shopkeepers evidently sulky. Prosperity, if she really had arrived, seemed to possess the secret of the fern-seed, and to walk invisibly, for no one had seen her except Mr Labouchere; and on investigating his experiences, it turned out that he had merely received his information from others. This year, however, everything was to be put to rights. Markets were to rise so high that even the most grumbling of the farmers would be glad of heart, and be enabled to make such purchases at the nearest town as would at once gratify the wife of his bosom, and give a material impulse to the production of home manufactures. Great were to be the profits of Manchester, Bradford, and Nottingham. Reciprocity was to be developed; and foreign nations, convinced of the necessity of universal brotherhood, were to fling their tariffs to the winds, and admit our produce duty free. By this time, too, we were to have Mr Mechi's balance-sheet before us. Mr Huxtable's pigs were to have produced ammonia enough to fertilise the seashore; or, if that scheme did not answer, the Netherby system of farming would be found equally advantageous. Nay, it was even prophesied that railway stocks would rise, and that on some hyperborean lines there was a possibility that a dividend might be paid on the preference shares. The iron districts were to outstrip California, and our shipping to multiply indefinitely.
It is deeply to be deplored, on every ground, that these expectations have not been realised. We have been repeatedly reproached by the advocates of the new commercial system for the gloominess of our views, and the absence of that hopeful spirit which animates the efforts, and gives vivacity to the style, of the light and lively Free-Traders. Now, it is quite true that we, being unable, after the most anxious consideration of the subject in all its bearings, to discover how the prosperity—that is, the wealth—of the nation could be increased by measures which had the direct tendency to lower the value of its produce, have had occasion very frequently to enunciate opinions which could not be agreeable to the cotton-stuffed ears of Manchester. We have periodically exposed, to the great dudgeon of the democrats, the clumsy fallacies and egregious nonsense of the Economist, familiarly known to the concoctors of statistical returns by the soubriquet of the "Cook's Oracle." We have taken sundry impostors by the nape of the neck, and have shaken them, as was our bounden duty, until they had not breath enough to squeak. But we maintain that the facts and results of each successive year have borne us out in the views which we originally entertained; and that the working of Free Trade, when brought into operation, has proved, as we predicted it would be, utterly subversive of the theories of the men who were its exponents, its champions, and its abettors. So much the worse for the country. But why should we be blamed for having simply spoken the truth? Show us your prosperity, if that prosperity really exists; or, at all events, be kind enough to specify to us the prominent symptoms of its coming. We need not, we are well aware, look for these among the farmers. Ministers have given that up—never more decidedly, though they did not probably understand the force of the language they were using, or its inevitable conclusion, than when they declared their hope and expectation that the British agriculturist, depressed by foreign importations, could not fail to profit ultimately by the improved condition of the other classes of the community! The gentleman who devised that sentence must have had, indeed, an implicit reliance in the gullibility of mankind! He might just as well have told the stage-coachmen, who were driven off the road by the substitution of the rail, that they would be sure to profit in the long run by the bettered circumstances of the stokers! If that is all the comfort that can be extended to the agriculturists, they will hardly warm themselves by it. But among the manufacturers, if anywhere, we may look for some measure of prosperity; and we grieve to say that, if such really exists, they take especial care to conceal it. Talk of farmers grumbling, indeed! If the whole race of corn-growers, from Triptolemus downwards, were assembled, and entreated to state their grievances and the causes of their dejection, we defy them to produce such a catalogue of continued woe as has been trumpeted from the trade circulars and reports during the last three years. Falling markets—continued stagnation—nothing doing. Such are the phrases with which we are familiar, and we meet with nothing else; wherefrom we conclude either that the manufacturers are all banded together in a league of unparalleled and very scandalous deceit, or that Free Trade, by contracting the home market, has made wild work with their profits also. Commercial failures, too, about which we have heard a good deal, and are likely to hear something more, are not to be accepted as unequivocal signs of the rising prosperity of the country.
Messrs Littledale write as follows, in their circular of 4th October, since which date much has occurred to give weight and confirmation to their statements:—
"Nothing seems to change the untoward course of events in this memorable year. An abundant harvest has been gathered, with less damage and at less cost than for many years, which was to prove the turning-point in commercial matters; instead of which, the depression seems only to increase from day to day, without apparent cause or termination. This state of things naturally begets mistrust amongst money-lenders and bankers; and just at the time when their support is most needed, and would prove most valuable in preventing that ruinous depression which forced sales on a declining market ever produce, their confidence is destroyed, and accommodation is refused.
"The losses on imports of every kind are alarming, and yet the tide is unabated; and unless a more vigorous stand is made by importers, either to bring down prices in the foreign market to a parity with our own, or to get their returns home in another form than produce, or, which perhaps is the only true course, to limit their operations to more legitimate bounds, nothing but a commercial crisis can be expected; indeed, had it not been for the abundance of money and the large supply of bullion from the West, aided by a splendid harvest, we should doubtless have had a repetition of '47 to some extent at the present moment."
Shipowners and millers tell us a tale of similar disaster; and the shopkeepers, if unanimous in nothing else, agree that their business is decreasing. The working-classes have cheap bread, but at the same time they have lowered wages; so that the advantage received on the one hand is neutralised by the reduction on the other.