Cif ailing 5,
A POLITICAL WANT.—There never was enterpriseor energy of any kind, however noble and useful, without a look of egotism. For our part, we feel that the country wants a few more egotists, men who will set their faces " like flint " against social and political evils, and act more on their own noble instincts. It is everybody waiting for everybody else, and wishing to do only what everybody else does, that paralyzes many men of great powers and creates perpetual disappointment. Go into the House of Com- mons and look round : look at that fine tall fellow with a noble expression ; admire that other beaming countenance ; observe those eagle eyes; look down the benches till you are arrested by that lofty brow or that stalwart form ; see there in succession the very type of a gentleman, of a philosopher, of one born for command; hear the rich tones of that voice, and permit yourself" to follow the faecination of that smile. But all these men are no- bodies. They were once the hope of families, of counties, of cities, of parties. But they lacked individuality. They waited for others, and con- sulted partisans, till by doing nothing they got into the habit of doing no- thing and having once suecumbedto too cautious counsels, were never able to rouse themselves. Mr. Roebuck must have had such men in his eye when he asked what it was that enabled him to do what he has done. He says, with genuine modesty, that it was not talent, or rank, or party, or an31,.. thing external, that placed him where he is, but the determination to be independent and do his duty to his country at all costs; just what most men want in these days.—Times, Sept. 6.
RUSSIAN FINANCE.—So little is known of the details. of Russian finance, that every document calculated to throw light on the subject, however tri- fling, is welcome to the public. Even the annual reports of the Minister of Finance, meagre as they are in their details, have a certain value, and we welcome that which has recently appeared in the 8. Petersburgishe kandels- Zeiteing, as being unusually copious The report commences by in- forming the Commissioners, that a loan of 7,500,0001., being the sixth five per cent loan, was taken by the house of Stieglitz ; but it omits to say at what price, although it details other matters—such as that the bonds are of 751. each to bearer, that the coupons are payable at Amsterdam and Ham- burg, that a redemption-fund of 2 per cent per annum comes into operation in 1868, and that after twenty years the whole is redeemable at par. Next follows a somewhat confused statement of the Exchequer Bonds issued 'lu- ring the year, amounting to 8,100,0001. ; but as 3,60%00W. appear to be is- sued against Bonds then falling due, the sum belonging to 1856 would be 4,500,0001. The amount now in circulation is not stated. The funded debt forms the next item. This has been increased by 10,815,7431. during 1855: the total given in the report as existing in 1856 is 77,991,067/. ; but the vari- ous items specified in the section referred to amount to 78,570,52N., although the preceding is the sum placed at their foot. The oinking-fiend amounts to 8,171,7821. The Credit Notes form the bulk of the circulating paper currency, and there were issued, during 1866, 32,265,2251., the amount in circulation in 1856 being 76,377,2091. These notes are of course payable to bearer at sight, in cash : therefore the condition of the metallic fund representing them is of some importance, and consists of 16,959,4211., with Government securities and sundries for 3,743,1771. ; a total of 20,702,5981. Although the notes issued have so largely increased, the bid- lion to meet them has diminished by more than 1,500,0001. In this state- ment, as in the preceding, the totals do not correspond with the details; neither do they as regards the Savings-Banks, where the balance for Ja- nuary 1855 is stated at 368,740., the deposits received during the year 204,6661., the repayments 160,314/., and the balance in January, 1856, 424,1131. ; whereas the above items make it 413,0921., and there is no ex-
planation given, and probably no question asked, as to the discrepancy
The amount due to depositors by the Imperial Loan Bank, in January 1856, is 55,368,6551; the sum out on loan 59,647,4911. But it is impossible to ascertain the position of this establishment. The capital is set down as 7,816,3901. ; and this added to the sum held in deposit would amount to 63,185,045e, leaving a deficiency of 3,537,5541., although a profit of 511,1001. is announced for the year. But here again, it is impossible to check the totals by the items. The amount of deposits in January 1856 is 32,462,2691., the capital 1,553,2971. ; but the only assets mentioned are the advances out- standing-2,956,6451. ; and what has become of the remaining thirty-one millions and odd, is left to the imagination. Although more than 10,500,000e were received, and 8,900,0001. paid by this bank during 1856,, it is singular that commercial paper was discounted only to the extent of 2,669,0001., and advances made on various other securities, including the Ural gold warrants, for about 1,900,0001. more. The profit for the year was 164,042/. ; so that it is clear this was not all the money-lending that was done.
The Deposit Bank, or Lombard, is the great money-lending establish- ment; and had out with various individuals and authorities 77,771,1931. in 1856, while the sum due to depositors was 69,108,1991., exclusive of 11,540,031/. due to the Foundling House. Here again there are no means of guessing as to its position : 365,0881. is set down as the year's profit, but, omitting the capital, if we take the two preceding items to represent the assets and liabilities, there is a fearful sum on the side of the latter. The two banks hold landed property with 6,028,794 souls; and be it remem- bered, that a "soul" is a male peasant only, the women and children count- ing for nothing. They have also 1310 stone houses, (in Russia all brick houses are called stone,) and 85 manufactories. Now the total number of serfs belonging to private persons is, according to Tegoborsky, 10,699,791; so that it would appear from the above that about three-fifths of them are in pawn. But a fourth credit establishment is reported on, that of the General Pro- vident Colleges. The deposits with them amounted to 13,276,9581., the loans out to 15,563,5071. The total sums out on loan from the four esta- blishments we have named is 155,938,8381., and their liabilities to deposit- ors 138,702,2401. We look upon this as a state of things by no means en- couraging. This vast amount of private debts steadily increases. Were the money raised employed as a general rule for the improvement of the estates of the borrowers, it might be a public benefit instead of an evil. The bulk of the sums go, however, to pay debts contracted at the gaming-table, or in the wretchedly paid military service. The total available representative of the 138,702,2401. of deposits is the 20,703,0001. in bullion and securities,. which has to do duty likewise as guarantee for the 76,377,000/. credit notes in circulation. A depositor who requires his money from any of these banks is paid in credit notes, which he can at once present for cash ; so the whole of the Government system of banking, involving a debt of more than 215,000,000/., payable on demand, is based on a beggarly metallic stock of seventeen millions. —Daily News, Sept. 3.
CONSERVATISM IN 1840 AND 1856.—As to the advice given by Lord Stan- ley to the farmers at Preston] we have no doubt it is of the best ; but it is not the detail of his speech but the general tone that is chiefly worthy of attention. We have in such a meeting as this a striking proof of national progress within a very few years. It is no small thing that an agricultural dinner can pass off without a political speech. It is a subject for congratula- tion that a landed proprietor or his heir can address a meeting of farmers without demanding three cheers for one thing and three groans for some- thing else. Rural Lancashire can be lectured on industry and improvement without fierce diatribes on Whigs and cotton-spinners, or exhortations to stand firm against imaginary wrongs. No one is asked to "nail his coloure to the mast," or to " rally round the altar and the throne." Agriculture has been withdrawn from the domain of party politics, and is now no more pitted against manufacturers than working in metal Is opposed to working in cot- ton. We may take as a contrast the oratory of North Lancashire now and some sixteen years since. Then, a nobleman, also bearing the title of Lord Stanley, was haranguing in this very district against the Government, its principles, its measures, its manufacturing allies, its Irish allies, its finance, its colonial policy, and foreign policy. All the Whig weekneeees or de- fects—and they were many—were exposed to a constant fire of brilliant and merciless rhetoric ; for it was towards the close of the long struggle which ended in the return of Sir Robert Peel to office. At that time " Conserva- tive associations" were engaged on every side in promoting the great reac- tion against the party which had triumphed by the Reform Bill. The then Lord Stanley was able to exercise all his powers of invective and ridicule on the Ministers, their paltry majorities, their subserviency to the Irish agita- tor, their unhappy budgets, and their unimpressive oratory. The thing was, no doubt, successful in its way. People to a great extent believed in the Conservative cries; nay, more, they found a practical meaning in the word "Conservative " itself. The end was a great party triumph. Sir Robert Peel was raised to office on the principle of opposition to everything that had been done for nine or ten years. But then came the difficulty. What were the Conservatives to do ? They had won the battle and turned out the Whigs; now they had to explain why they had turned them out and what different policy they intended to substitute. It was very well while in opposition to shout frantically for the young Queen, and affect to consider her throne in danger, to declaim that the Government was overthrowing national prosperity at home and betraying national honour abroad ; but these patriotic sentiments were somewhat vague as a foundation for actual working measures. The consequence was what thinking men had expected, and what we may predict will always attend the advent of the so-called Conservative party to power. The whole body went to work to carry out all that the Whigs had planned and had been unable to execute on account of the bitter Conservative opposition. The astute leader probably knew beforehand, what his followers found out afterwards, that his party could only exist as an Opposition. He had no sooner by his financial skill repaired the real deficiencies of his predecessors than he adopted all those principles respecting which they were in the right, and the whole body which had declaimed at Conservative associations during the Whig rule followed him with docility for nearly five years of practically liberal government. How far they might have gone with him in his last and chief exploit, had he condescended to treat them with greater deference, it is difficult to say. It was perhaps as much against the manner as the matter of Corn-law repeal that the Country party rebelled. However, re- sistance was as useless as a courteous acceptance of the new measure might have been politic and graceful. Conservatism fell : its whole course of ad- ministration had been a long suicide ; its principles are now morally dead, and can never revive in the old and accustomed form.-limes, Sept. 1.
THE POTATO ALWAYS UNCERTAID7.-The potato was introduced into Ire- land and was becoming comparatively well known about the middle of the seventeenth century. It was in more recent times, however, that it was universally adopted, especially in Ulster, that province so largely peopled by the Scotch. It was within the memory of people still living that an in- telligent Scotch labourer learnt the plan of growing potatoes and of cooking them so that they should be palateable ; and he made a little fortune, upon which he passed the remainder of his days, by fees paid to him for im- parting the instruction. Before his day the Scotch rejected the vegetable, as a nasty, wet, unpalateable, and useless article of food. The uncertainty of the crop has been known almost as long as the potato itself. So early as 1629230, when there was a dearth in England, according to a writer in the Philosophical Transactions, "the potatoes were a relief to Ire- land probably in their last famine ; they yield meat and drink." But by whatsoever alias we call the root-whether, as in Virginia, " openawk," or in botanical jargon, " solanum tuberosum," or in Anglo-Irish of various periods, " potatee," " potado," " patatee," "prates," " patata," or " phot- tie," the root has invariably been very precarious. In Scotland the adoption belongs almost to our own day. It may have balked the soldiers of Cromwell, because it was buried underground, and they could not extirpate it so readily as they could have cut and carried growing corn. But if the potato was clever at deceiving the "proud invader," it has been quite as clever a traitor in deceiving the Irish them- selves. So early as 1739-'40, we hear of a great destruction of the potato by severe and long-continued frost, after a wet summer and autumn. In 1741, the people were cautioned against eating potatoes, as they were be- lieved to be diseased, and they produced disease in men. There were fail- ures again in 1765, when potatoes were scarce and small, as they were in 1826 ; in 1770, when there was the " curl," a disease in the leaves; and in 1779, when Arthur Young found the people sprinkling their land with lime, to prevent the "black rot." There is, indeed, reason to believe that the black rot was the same that we have witnessed in our own day. As time advances, the failure becomes more frequent. In 1784 the potato was called " spuggaun," from its diseased softness. There were failures again through excessive wet or excessive drought in 1795 and 1800 (the curl) ; in 1801, freezing of " the sets " in the ground ; 1807, frost ; 1809, the curl ; 1811, excessive wet ; 1812, failure of the plants ; 1816, " the black rot " ; 1817, scarcity ; 1820, inundations ; 1821, rot and " souring " in some places ; 1826, scarcity and high price ; 1829, excessive wet; 1833, potato failure, with famine and pestilence ; 1832, epidemic in the potato ; 1833, " the curl," and probably the " rot" ; 1804, a partial failure ; 1835-'6, a scarcity ; 1838, general remarks on "inherent con- stitutional weakness" and; deterioration ; 1839, "black rust." In 1839-'42 there were failures also in the island of Arran and Scottish Highlands ; a "dry gangrene" of the potato in Germany. After these dates, we have between 1841 and '51 more or less of unfavour- able seasons every year, with partial or local failures in the three subse- quent years. The total failure and famine of '46 is in the memory of every- body. This mere recital of dates is sufficient to show how impossible it is to depend upon the potato as the staple of food for a nation. We are not, indeed, to suppose that the Irishman will instantly relinquish a root which is in many respects so immediately convenient ; but a complete knowledge of its untrustworthy character will assist in removing it from the false position of being the staple upon which the whole body of the people is to rely, and will restore it to its proper place as an auxiliary amongst other vegetables for the table.-Globe, Sept. 4.
Previous page
