year, has constantly provoked petty disturbances, as pretexts for
arbitrarily consigning to the dungeon or the colonies as many as
possible of those they dislike or fear, now find themselves face to
face with a real insurrection of most formidable aspect. They have
cried wolf till the wolf has come, and they run considerable risk
of being devoured. In vain they deny their peril, affect to bluster
and talk big; their real alarm peeps through the flimsy cloak of
bravado. A government confident of its strength, and of the support
and sympathies of the governed, does not condescend to treat and
tamper with rebels. If the insurgents be so contemptible in numbers
and resources as the organs of Narvaez and the Queen-mother daily
assert them to be, why not crush them at once, instead of attempting
to buy over their chiefs, who, on their part, pocket the bribes and
laugh at their seducers? If Cabrera, for weeks together, lay sick
and bedridden in a Catalonian village, why was not a detachment,
or, if necessary, a division, sent to apprehend him? Such flimsy
impostures deceive no one. The truth is, that, with the exception
of a few fortified places, the east of Spain is in the hands of the
Carlists and Progresistas, who come up to the walls of the cities
and levy contributions at the very gates. The north only waits the
signal to burst into revolt; in the Castiles alarming demonstrations
are daily made, and armed bands show themselves on various points; in
the large commercial towns in the south, whose desire for a revision
of the present absurd Spanish tariff renders them ardent liberals,
discontent smoulders, and in an instant may burst into a flame. There
are Andalusian cities where the appearance of Espartero, or of some
other popular and influential Progresista, would at once raise the
entire population. At present, however, the revolt is in its infancy,
and can hardly be said to have begun. Its chiefs avoid encounters,
and busy themselves with organisation--which proceeds rapidly, in
spite of the marches and countermarches of Messrs Cordova, Pavia,
Villalonga, and the other Christino generals, and of the glorious
victories narrated in the columns of the _Heraldo_ and other equally
veracious journals. According to these, Cabrera has already been
several times totally routed and driven over the frontier. We have
strong grounds for believing that, up to this moment,--although
his lieutenants have been engaged in small affrays, of little or no
importance, but terminating, with scarcely an exception, in their
favour--he himself has not smelt powder, burned in anger, since he
left Spain in 1840. He waits the proper moment, when his arrangements
shall be completed, to commence operations upon a large scale; and
meanwhile he very judiciously avoids frittering away his strength in
profitless skirmishes. By the last advices worthy of credit, he is at
the head of six thousand men, well armed and uniformed, and nearly
all old soldiers, in high spirits and thorough discipline. This force
does not include the numerous detached and irregular bands spread
over Catalonia and Valencia, or various bodies of Progresistas, who
march under their own banner, but are on the best of terms with
the Carlists, and will co-operate with them in the day of battle.
Arms and ammunition are procured without difficulty from France
and England. The French Republic has its hands too full to attend
seriously to such trifles. Although General Cavaignac, to get rid
of the importunities of that blatant knave Sotomayor, did order the
arrest of a brace of unlucky Progresistas, there is little chance of
his carrying out the preventive system to a rigorous extent, or of
his depriving the starving French manufacturers of the crust they may
obtain by fabricating arms and clothing for the Carlist troops. As
to England, she is, of course, in no way called upon to prevent the
export of Birmingham muskets and Hounslow cartridges, even should she
suspect their destination to be different from that entered at the
custom-house. Indeed, it is shrewdly suspected that Lord Palmerston
would like nothing better than to see his quondam friends ejected
from Spain, and to resume amicable relations with that country by
accrediting an ambassador to the court of Charles VI.
It is worthy of remark that Cabrera, who made himself so
notorious, during the last civil war in Spain, by his barbarous
cruelties--provoked, but not justified, by his mother's
murder--appears now to have adopted a totally different system,
and to have exchanged his ferocity for moderation and humanity. We
hear of no more cold-blooded shooting of prisoners, or wanton and
unprovoked aggressions; Christino soldiers who have fallen into his
hands, or into those of his subordinates, have been disarmed and
set at liberty; good treatment has been shown to magistrates and
other officials, carried off as hostages or held for ransom. The
contributions levied on the country have been regularised, and are
willingly paid; the peasantry receive the insurgents as liberators,
instead of shunning them as spoilers. Furious at this state of
things, which they can neither alter nor conceal, the Christinos
know not how to show their wrath, or on whom to wreak it; and the
means they resort to for the expression of their spite are perfectly
suicidal. The unfortunate _Constitucional_ of Barcelona, one of
the few remaining papers in Spain which now and then venture to
speak the truth, is arbitrarily suppressed for drawing a faithful
picture of the state of the province; whilst the very next day one
of the government generals confirms the truth of the sketch, and the
disaffection of the peasants, by enforcing the premature gathering
in of the fruits of the earth, to rot and perish in store, and by
forbidding the labourer to carry to the field more than six ounces
of food, lest he should sell or give it to the Carlists--annexing to
these stringent enactments others equally onerous and tyrannical.
All this time, at Madrid and in other cities, arrests continue; and
every day fresh victims are consigned to Ceuta, the Philippines, or
the prisons, their relatives and friends being thenceforward added to
the host of the disaffected. Why, this is stark-staring madness!--the
insanity, preceding perdition, with which God afflicts those he would
destroy. To discomfiture and destruction, total and lasting, the
party still dominant in Spain are to all appearance hastening. None
will pity their fall. They will be condemned not only by all just
men, but by the most reckless advocates of political expediency;
for they have been blind to their own true interests, as well as
unblushingly contemptuous of every principle of morality and good
government.
CONSERVATIVE UNION.
No private calamity which has occurred for years has so startled
the mind of England as the withdrawal of Lord George Bentinck from
the scene of his useful labours. In the prime of life, in the full
possession of a vigorous and masculine intellect, at the head of
a large and increasing political party, who revered him for his
unsullied honour, and loved him for his undaunted courage, he has
been taken from us by one of those mysterious visitations which are
sent as a token that the destinies of the world are indeed in the
hands of God. Short as was his public career, he had won for himself
a name which will not lightly die away in the history of his country,
and his memory will be cherished among us as that of a man who had
the welfare of Britain thoroughly at heart; and who, in an age of
degenerate and vacillating statesmanship, had the firmness to tear
off the mask from the features of hypocrisy, and to expose the awful
consequences of that culpable race for power which has effected the
partial disorganisation of this great and once prosperous empire.
The loss of such a man at such a time is indeed far more a public
than a private calamity. As such, it has been felt throughout the
realm by thousands who understood the true position of Bentinck as
the champion of native industry, and the utter uncompromising foe of
that selfish and sordid system which seeks to aggrandise the few at
the cost of the labouring many. A large proportion even of those who
originally yielded to the deleterious doctrines of the free-traders,
but who, through sad and wholesome experience, had become alive
to the folly and iniquity of the modern scheme, were gathering
confidence from his unremitting exertions, and preparing to rank
themselves by his side. In him the British colonies have lost their
firmest friend and advocate. The noble struggle which he made this
year in behalf of the oppressed and defrauded West Indian planters,
was, in the opinion of many who knew him well, the proximate cause of
his death; for a similar amount of physical and intellectual labour
has hardly ever been undertaken even by a professional man, and never
without the imminent risk of shattering the constitution.
We should ill perform our duty to the public, and to the
constitutional party whose cause we have undeviatingly supported,
if we omitted to take this last sad opportunity of testifying our
respect for the memory of so valuable a man. The tendency of the
present age is to estimate merit by success, and to offer its sole
homage to the winner of the desperate game. But those who look deeper
into the secret springs of human action and impulse, can hardly fail
to recognise in Bentinck a character invested with that rare chivalry
and devotion which, by common consent, we accept as the attribute of
our purest patriots and heroes. Chicanery, deceit, and falsehood were
utterly abhorrent to his mind. He had no taste for those state tricks
which have superseded the old manly English method, and no sympathy
for those who used them. He went into the arena of politics as a
soldier might go to battle, confident in the integrity and justice
of the cause in which he was engaged, and determined to maintain it
to the last against any weight of opposition. It was this resolute
and undaunted spirit which at once raised him from comparative
obscurity to the rank of a great parliamentary leader; for those who
co-operated with him knew well that they were dealing with a man
superior to all intrigue, and ready to lay down his life rather than
infringe, in the slightest degree, on the pledge which he had offered
to his country.
We have no hesitation in saying this, because we are certain that no
one will question the sincerity of our conviction. During the last
two years, and almost without intermission, we have been compelled to
devote a large portion of our space to the consideration of public
questions, and of the political difficulties of the time. On more
than one point our views were seriously opposed to those entertained
and advocated by Lord George Bentinck; nor have we concealed our
opinion that his tactics, however bold, were not the best adapted
for accomplishing the object which we have most warmly at heart, the
reconstitution of the Conservative party upon such clear and defined
principles as may rescue the country from its present perilous
position.
We feel that the necessity of such a union is so plain and
urgent--that the danger of allowing the affairs of Britain to be
longer administered by a feeble but stubborn ministry has been so
clearly demonstrated--that we cannot any longer afford to remain
inactive, or to indulge in idle recrimination. The safety of the
country peremptorily demands the adoption of a different policy, and
the resumption of the reins of government by hands that are capable
of holding them. It is for the gentlemen of England to decide whether
they shall adopt such a course by uniting cordially hand and heart
to retrieve us from our present embarrassments, or sit idly by as
mere spectators of a fatal course of legislation. The present crisis
is by far too serious to be viewed with indifference, or through the
coloured glass of obsolete party interest. The welfare of the empire
is at stake, and that is a subject with which none of us can dare to
dally.
What are the differences which at present separate one section of
the Conservatives from the other? They resolve themselves simply
into the adhesion of a few talented, but we must say obstinate men,
to a leader whose tortuous policy has been the main cause of our
present unhappy position. We have no wish to say hard things even of
Sir Robert Peel. We believe, and devoutly hope, that his reign of
office is over, and that no combination of circumstances may occur
to bring him back, even for the shortest period, into power; and,
believing and hoping this, we are content to let him alone, and leave
him to the judgment of that posterity which he is so peculiarly
prone to invoke. But we ask those who have clung with such extreme
tenacity to his cause, seriously to view the effect of the late
legislative measures upon the community at large--to consider how
far the result of the free-trade scheme has corresponded with the
nature of its promise--and to reflect upon the present precarious
state of our oldest and most valuable dependencies. We blame no
one for having entertained an opinion conscientiously differing
from our own. There may not be any disgrace in having, consented
to an experiment which, when put into practice, has resulted in an
absolute failure; but there is disgrace, ay, and infinite dishonour,
in refusing to acknowledge an error when its consequences are made
palpably manifest, and in persisting to gloss it over for the sake of
an egotistical consistency. We do not believe that high-minded and
honourable men will be guilty of such vain and frivolous conduct; and
it is in that belief that we make our present most urgent appeal.
Look at the effect of our present free-trade laws, not only upon
the revenue, but upon the internal industry of Britain. Is it not
clear and utterly beyond dispute, that our exports, for which we
have sacrificed every thing, are greatly on the decline, and that
our imports are steadily increasing? Not even the merest tyro in
political science,--not even the dullest dolt that clamoured at
the meetings of the League,--will venture to affirm that this is a
state of things which can continue without entailing ruin on the
country; and yet the Whigs, with that insensibility and sottishness
which is as much their characteristic as obstinacy, have announced
for next session their intention of pushing the experiment further!
For a year, we have had no budget, a circumstance entirely without
a parallel in parliamentary history. The excess of the national
expenditure above the revenue has been stated at the enormous sum
of a million and a half, though we believe that in reality three
millions would not cover the deficiency; and a considerable item even
of that revenue is to be cut off from us, when the act repealing
the corn law shall come into full operation. We cannot look for any
improvement in trade whilst we leave our markets open to the produce
of foreign labour, and allow the wealthy classes to be supplied
with almost all their articles of consumption from an unremunerating
source. We must again look to the customs as our main source of
revenue, and more than that, as our absolute salvation from the
anarchy which must ensue, if the hundred small non-exporting trades
of the country are to be sacrificed for the monopoly of the few, and
the millions engaged in these pursuits made beggars and driven to
desperation.
And what is the state of the monopoly? How have the manufacturers
gained? Let FOUR MILLIONS of diminished exports _on the half year_
only, and the suppression of the Manchester return of the number of
unemployed operatives in the very metropolis of the League, be the
reply. Yes--it has come to this pass, that the free-traders DARE
not publish to the world the results of their own madness. In the
month of June last, there were within a fraction of EIGHT THOUSAND
workmen without employment in Manchester alone, and the numbers were
increasing so fast, that it was deemed expedient to discontinue
the startling return. How can we be surprised that Chartism and
disaffection are rankling in men's minds, when we take such
deliberate pains to make them paupers?
We are told that the state of the Continent is such that our export
market is impeded. Let us for the moment admit that such is the
case, and let us see what sort of argument that furnishes for the
continuance of the present system. Is it deliberately proposed that
we are to remain with our ports open, until France and Germany, and
Spain and Italy, are tranquillised? Are the prophets of peace still
so sanguine of the speedy realisation of their visions? Are we to
wait for years--with an increasing debt, a diminished revenue, and
still further stagnation of employment--until our brethren on the
other side of the Channel have reconciled their jarring theories of
Red Republics and of unity, adjusted their boundaries, and again
betaken themselves to the arts of peace? Our own constitution may
well be shattered before that consummation can arrive! But the truth
is, that, in many respects, the Continental disturbances are not
unfavourable to our export trade. If, on the one hand, they have
occasioned a less degree of consumption; on the other, they have
paralysed industry and depreciated capital abroad. Belgium, it is
true, is a formidable competitor for our staples in the foreign
market; but, notwithstanding, we do not expect any serious diminution
in this branch of our foreign trade. The evil of which we complain
is chronic, and it has not been caused by any sudden or violent
convulsions.
It is to our colonies that we must look for the cause of our
diminished exports. It was our paramount duty and obligation to
have fostered these, and to have made them, by a wise system of
reciprocity, at once the best supporters of our power, and the most
sure and steady consumers of our manufactured produce. We have done
nothing of this. On the contrary, the course which we have thought
proper to pursue towards those integral portions of the empire has
been marked by tyranny and injustice. We have ruined the West Indies,
and yet we wonder why they do not consume our cottons! Our weak and
ridiculous legislation, without foresight and without principle,
has not only retarded the progress of the colonies, but absolutely
frightened them out of our market; and unless a very different system
is speedily adopted, we may have bitter occasion to rue our folly,
and to curse the selfishness of the men who, from mere lust of
personal power, have sacrificed the best interests of the nation.
How, then, have the manufacturers gained by free trade? On the one
hand, they have not been able, by inviting and giving every facility
to imports, to increase the quantity of their export; on the other,
they have closed up several of their surest markets. The full extent
of our egregious folly has not yet become visible to the public. The
manufacturers, by a sort of retributive justice, are the persons
who are feeling it the most, and ere long they will be compelled to
acknowledge it. It is seriously affecting the trade and commerce
of our greatest cities. The number of vessels which have cleared
out of the Clyde from the port of Glasgow during the last nine
months, is in the proportion of 382 to 602 for the same period in
the previous year! Glasgow, as every one knows, owed its rise and
opulence to its connexion with the colonies, more especially the West
Indies; and here is the heaviest blow which probably was ever heard
of in the history of commerce, struck, through free trade, at the
second city of Britain. It is good that we should know these things;
better if, by revolving them, we can turn experience to advantage.
Let the electors throughout the kingdom, more especially in the
towns, meditate seriously before they are again called on to use
their political franchise; let them reflect on their own diminished
prosperity, and beware of that hollow liberalism combined with
quackery which is the stain and the curse of the age.
To this position we have been brought by a bad commercial policy,
originated by mean and mercenary men, and most unhappily adopted
by a minister who became a convert towards the close of a long
official life. We have seen and felt the system as it works; and
the only question now for our consideration is, whether we are to
suffer it to endure? If we do so, it is vain to deny that we are on
the verge of general ruin. There is not a symptom of improvement.
Day by day the cry of distress waxes louder, and yet we hesitate to
take the necessary steps for effecting our own emancipation. There
is hardly one man in the country--the bailie of Blairgowrie perhaps
excepted--who can have, or feels, the slightest confidence in the
abilities of Lord John Russell. Such a cabinet as this, in point of
political decrepitude and imbecility, was never yet formed; and it
could not live for an hour save for the unseemly dissensions in the
Conservative camp. These cannot be permitted to last. There is no
merit in personal devotion when pushed beyond its proper sphere; and
the best service which Sir Robert Peel can render to his sovereign,
is utterly to abjure all pretension of ever returning to power.
Surely he can have no wish to head a reactionary movement, or expose
himself to the obloquy of recanting the last edition of his views.
There is another reason why the Conservatives are imperatively called
upon to unite. Recent disclosures of a very startling nature have
forced upon us the conviction, that the Whigs are worse than weak,
and that they cannot be depended on as steadfast guardians of the
crown. There is more in the famous letter written by Mr Thomas Young,
formerly private secretary to Lord Melbourne, than meets the eye.
We attach no undue importance to this epistle--we shall not stoop
so low as to examine the motives and intention of its author. His
own attempted explanation is, if possible, more damning than the
treasonable missive itself. We could only, were we to exhaust our
whole powers of illustration, repeat what has been already stated
in the masterly article of the _Standard_. It is as clear as day,
that at the time of the passing of the Reform Bill, the underlings
of the Whig administration were cognisant of a hideous project for a
violent and bloody revolution, and that, to take the mildest point
of view, they concealed that knowledge from their masters. Franks
were obtained _from the Home Office_, for the purpose of suborning
the loyalty of at least one officer, high in his Majesty's service,
and proposing to him the odious part of a leader in a popular
insurrection. Whether that letter, written as it probably was in
the fullest confidence, ought or ought not to have seen the light,
especially after the lapse of so many years, is a matter with which
we have no concern. That is a question which is only personal to
Mr Young and his correspondent; but we have the document, and the
whole nation is entitled to inquire into its tenor. And never, upon
any accusation of so grave a nature, was a more miserable defence
preferred. In fact there can be, and there is, no escape from the
legitimate conclusion. At that time a section of the Whigs were
ready, for the sake of carrying their own scheme, not only to have
connived at, but to have lent their whole influence to a popular
outbreak and rising, which might, in all human probability, have been
subversive of the constitution of the country. Lord Melbourne might
not have known of that letter: we go farther, and state our positive
opinion that he was utterly ignorant of its existence, because,
however we may have differed from him in politics, he is a man whose
personal honour and loyalty have always been free from a stain. We
believe--and are glad in stating it--that he was utterly ignorant
of the vile treason which was hatching in his own department; but
we shall not extend the same shelter of belief to others of his
unpatriotic party. That treason was meditated is plain; and very
thankful shall we be if the higher order of the Whigs shall take the
pains, by disavowing and repudiating the acts of their subordinates,
and by withdrawing from those implicated the unmerited rewards
of their sedition, to clear themselves from the heavy suspicion
which this document undoubtedly affixes on their loyalty. It is a
disclosure too grave to be met with a light explanation. The fact of
meditated treason, known to Whig officials, has transpired, and we
are entitled to know how far upwards the rank contagion had spread.
That letter, apart from its historical value, is important at the
present moment, inasmuch as we think that no one can peruse it
without feeling convinced that, in any struggle for power, the Whigs
would have no scruple in sacrificing principle to their interest.
They have done so already repeatedly, and their tactics have always
been to retain or recover office by making large concessions to
the demands of the Radical or the Irish party. We are not without
apprehension that they are, even now, contemplating some move of a
similar nature, to be made during the ensuing session of Parliament,
for the purpose of retrieving some portion of their lost popularity.
The Radical party have openly threatened to withdraw their support
from the ministry unless some increase of the suffrage shall be
granted; and an agitation to that effect would be particularly
palatable to the free-traders, as it might tend, in some degree,
to draw public attention from the utter failure of their schemes.
Any movement, in such a direction, would be followed by the most
disastrous consequences. A further infusion of the popular element
into the House of Commons, would simply lead to greater encroachments
on the constitution, more reckless experiments upon the stability
of our trade and commerce, and more culpable bidding by ministries
for popularity in every shape. Where is to be the end of such an
agitation--unless, indeed, we were to follow the notable examples
of France and Germany, and adopt universal suffrage--if, on each
occasion when the country is suffering under the pressure of noxious
laws, no mode of relief can be suggested, save through an extension
of the Reform Bill? We should have thought that the success of the
first experiment was not quite so conspicuous as to invite another
of the same nature. The impudence of the Radical faction is really
almost incredible. Mr Cobden and his confederates have got free
trade, from the effects of which we are presently languishing; and
they now propose to revive our spirits and replenish our purses by
stocking the House of Commons with an additional importation of men
of precisely the same caste and opinions as their own! We suspect
that the funds would scarce be lively if the country were assured
that forty Brights, instead of one, were seated in our National
Assembly.
We therefore again implore the Conservatives to unite without loss
of time, since in their hands alone can we have a thorough guarantee
for the safety of the crown, the stability of the national churches,
and for the integrity of the constitution. Let all lukewarmness, all
promptings of personal ambition, all latent rancour, and all absurd
and unreciprocated confidence, be given to the winds at once; and let
us seriously and diligently apply ourselves to the task of recalling
to Britain and her colonies that measure of prosperity which we
possessed before evil counsels prevailed, and which, even now, is not
beyond our power to recall. The industrious classes of the community,
impoverished and straitened as they have been, have a right to this
service from the high-minded gentlemen of England. The power and the
ability are with us, if we only testify the disposition; and surely
it is madness to remain at idle feud while the enemy are visible at
the gate.