London, Tuesday, Sept. 13, 1853 

The Sunday Times published in its last number a dispatch from 
Lord Clarendon to Sir H. Seymour, in answer to the note of Count 
Nesselrode of June 20. This dispatch bears date July 16. It is a mere 
“doubli¢re” of the reply of M.Drouyn de Lhuys.* A correspon- 
dent of The Leader on Saturday last, expresses himself in the 
following spirited manner on the “antagonism” between Lords 
Aberdeen and Palmerston’: 

“Lord -Aberdeen [...] could never understand Lord Palmerston’s affectations— 
never seeing that, consequent upon these affectations, Lord Palmerston was always 
able to promote unmolested the Russian system, even better than Lord Aberdeen himself... 
Lord Palmerston [...] disguises cynicism in Compromise.... Lord Aberdeen did, as 
Lord Palmerston did not, express his convictions.... Lord Palmerston sees the 
expediency, and Lord Aberdeen does not see the expediency of talking 
intervention, while acting non-intervention.... Lord Aberdeen knowing, from his 
acquaintance with the governing classes, how seats are got, and voters bought, does 
not think the British Constitution the most perfect of human institutions; and, 
calculating that the people of Continental Europe are not more amiable or more 
honest than the people of Great Britain, he abstains from urging on continental 
governments the desirability of abolishing paternal despotism in favor of 
self-government by governing classes.... Lord Aberdeen [...] perceives that Great 
Britain is a power made up of conquests over nationalities, and scorns a foreign 
policy affecting to befriend struggling nationalities. Lord Aberdeen does not see 
why England, which has conquered and plundered India, and keeps India down 
for India’s good, should set up for a hater of Czar Nicholas, who [...] a good despot 
in Russia, and keeps Poland down for Poland’s obvious good. Lord Aberdeen does 
not see why England, which has crushed several rebellions in Ireland, should be 
fanatically angry with Austria for keeping down Hungary; and knowing that England 

forces an alien Church on Ireland, he understands the eagerness of the Pope* to plant 
Cardinal Wiseman in Westminster. He knows that we have had Kaffir wars, and does 
not think Nicholas a ruffian for thinning his army among the Caucasians; he knows 
that we send off periodically, rebellious Mitchells and O’Briens to Van Diemen’s 
Land” and does not feel horror because Louis Napoleon institutes a Cayenne. 
Whenever he has to write to the Neapolitan Government about Sicilian affairs, he does 
not plunge into ecstatic liberalism, because he bears in mind that Great Britain has a 
proconsul at Corfu.... It is a happy arrangement, a Coalition Government, which 
includes, with Lord Aberdeen acting the Russian, Lord Palmerston, to talk the 
Bermondsey policy.” 

As a proof that I have not undervalued the heroism of 
Switzerland,° I may allege a letter addressed by its Federal Council 
to the Ticinese Government, contending that 

“the affair of the Capuchins?*? is purely a Cantonal question, and that 
consequently it is for the Canton of Ticino to consider whether it is better for it to 

resist, and continue subject to the rigorous measures of Austria, or to make to the 
Government offers of renewal of negociations.” 4 

Thus it appears that the Swiss Federal Council tries to bring 
down its dispute with Austria within the proportions of a simple 
Cantonal affair. The same Council has just ordered the expulsion 
of the Italians, Clementi, Cassola and Grillenzoni, after the Jury at 
Chur had acquitted them from the charge of having abetted the 
Milan insurrection’! by the forwarding of arms across the 
Ticinese frontier. 

The British support to Juggernaut appears not yet to have been 
altogether done away with. On the 5th of May, 1852, the following 
dispatch was addressed by the Court of Directors to the Governor 
of India: 

“We continue to be of opinion that it is desirable finally to dissever the British 
Government from all connection with the temple, and we therefore authorize to 
make arrangements for accomplishing this object by the discontinuance of any 
periodical allowance to it, in lieu of which some final payment may be made in the 

way of compensation to any persons who may appear upon a liberal construction of 
past engagements or understandings to be entitled to such indemnifications.” 

On the 11th April, 1853, however, nothing had been done by 
the Indian Government, the subject being still under consideration 
at that date. 

A week has been consumed in a government inquiry into the 
cruelties practised upon the prisoners in Birmingham jail, cruelties 
which have induced several of them to commit and others to 

The Leader, No. 181, September 10, 1853.— Ed. 

attempt suicide. Startled on one side by an exposition of atrocities 
not surpassed by any committed in an Austrian or Neapolitan 
carcere duro, we are on the other side surprised at the tame 
acquiescence of the visiting magistrates in the representations 
which were made to them by interested parties, and at their utter 
want of sympathy with the victims. Their solicitude for the 
barbarous gaoler was so great that they regularly forewarned him 
of their approaching visits. The chief culprit, Lieutenant Austin, is 
one of those persons whom Carlyle designated in his Model 
Prisons as the true officers of the pauper and criminal. 

One of the topics of the day is Railway morality. The Yorkshire 
and Lancashire Board of Directors particularly announce on their 
tickets that 

“whatever accident may happen, whatever injury may be inflicted through their 

own negligence or that of their servants, they would hold themselves absolved from 
all legal responsibility.”° 

At the same time the Directors of the Birmingham and 
Shrewsbury line appeared before the Vice-Chancellor’s Court on 
Saturday for having cheated their own shareholders. There exists 
a rivalry between the Great Western and the North-Western lines 
as to which of the two should absorb the above line in question. 
The majority of the shareholders being in favor of amalgamation 
with the North-Western, and the Directors of absorption into the 
Great Western, it occurred to the latter to turn a number of shares 
held by them in trust for the Company to account, for the 
manufacture of fictitious voters. For this purpose the shares were 
transferred to a number of nominal holders—in some instances it 
would seem without the concurrence of the parties whose names 
were used, and in one instance to a child of nine years of 
age—who paid no consideration for the shares, but executed 
re-transfers of them into the hands of the Directors, and supplied 
them, in virtue of their nominal ownership, with a given number 
of proxies, to insure a majority in favor of the union with the 
Great Western. The learned Judge remarked that “anything more 
flagrant or more gross could scarcely be conceived, and the way in 
which the plan had been carried out was still more gross.” With 
this reflection he dismissed the guilty parties, as is usual among 
the bourgeoisie, while a poor devil of a proletarian would have 
been sure to be transported for a theft beyond five pounds. 

Saturday, Sept. 3”, The Times, No. 21525, September 5, 1853.— Ed. 

It is curious to observe the British public in its fluctuating 
indignation now against the morality of mill lords, and now against 
the pit-owners, now against the little dealers in adulterated drugs, 
and then against the railwaymen who have supplanted the obsolete: 
highwaymen; in short, against the morality of every particular class 
of capitalists. Taking the whole, it would seem that capital possesses a 
peculiar morality of its own, a kind of superior law of a raison d état, 
while ordinary morals are a thing supposed to be good for the poor 
people. 

Manchester Parliamentary Reformers seem to be in a pretty fix. 
The election revelations of the last session concerned almost 
exclusively boroughs, and even the great ones, as Hull, Liverpool, 
Cambridge and Canterbury. The liberal election-broker, Mr. 
Coppock, confessed in a fit of veracity: “What St. Albans was all 
other boroughs are.” Now the oligarchy meditate turning these 
exposures to recount in effecting a reform in favor of counties 
and at the cost of boroughs. The Manchester Reformers, who 
desire no general extension of the suffrage, but only one within 
the borough-limits, are, of course, dumb under such a proposition. 
It is pitiful to see how their organ, The Daily News, struggles to get 
out of this difficulty. 

On January 14, 1846, the Bank rate of interest was raised to 3 
is per cent.; on Jan. 21, 1846, to 4 per cent.; and it was not until 
April, 1847, that the rate rose to 5 per cent.; but it is known that in 
the last three weeks of April, 1847, almost all operations of credit 
were at a deadlock. In 1853, the upward movement of the Bank 
rate of interest was by far more rapid. From 2 per cent., at which 
it was on 24th April, 1852, it rose to rag per cent. on Jan. 8, 
1853; to 3 per cent. on the 22d of the same month, to 3'/, per 
cent. on the 4th June, to 4 per cent. on the Ist of September, and 
already the rumor runs through the city that it will shortly rise to 
5 per cent. In Nov. 1846, the average price of wneat was 56/9 per 
qr.; in the latter weeks of August, 1853, it had reached 65/ to 66/. 
About this period last year the Bank of England 

held in its cellars ......................-.c-2-ceeeeeee £ 21,852,000 
It now holds only ............2..-2-2ccceeeeeeeeeeee £ 16,500,068 
Being a difference Of ...............::::cce sees £ 5,351,932 

The bullion decreased during last week but one by £208,875, and 
in last week by £462,852. The effect upon prices at the Stock 
Exchange has been immediate, every description of security dec- 
lining. We read in the Money article of last Wednesday’s Times: 

“Notwithstanding the depression in the Stock-market, Exchequer bills remained 
at 2 per cent. discount to | per cent. premium, but an impression is entertained 
that the Chancellor of the Exchequer, in order to sustain the price, causes them to 
be purchased on Government account, in the absence of any funds immediately 
available for that purpose, by the sales of 3 per cent. Stocks held on account of 
savings-banks.”* 

This would be a masterpiece on the part of Mr. Gladstone: 
selling Consols at a low figure and purchasing Exchequer bills at a 
high one, causing a loss of half the income of the 3 per cent. 
stocks by converting them into Exchequer bills bearing little more 
than 1'/, per cent. interest. 

How can we reconcile an unfavorable exchange or drain of 
bullion with the unprecedented increase of British exports, which 
at the end of the year will surpass by £16,000,000 even the 
exports of 1852? 

“As we give credit [...] to all the world in the case of our exports, and pay ready 
money in the case of our imports, a large expansion of our trade at any moment 
must necessarily lead to a considerable balance in the payments against us at the 

time, but which must all be returned when the credit upon our exports has expired, 
and remittances ought to be made for them.” 

So says The Economist.” According to this theory, if the exports 
of 1854 were to surpass again those of 1853, the exchange must 
continue to be against England, and a commercial crisis would be 
the only means of adjustment. The Economist thinks that disasters 
like those of 1847 are out of the question, because no considerable 
portion of capital has been fixed now as then, in railways, etc. He 
forgets that it has been converted into factories, machinery, ships, 
etc. On the other hand, The Observer laments the 

“foolish investments in foreign railways, and other companies of very doubtful and 
suspicious character.” © 

The Economist thinks that the extended commercial operations, so 
far as Europe is concerned, may receive a wholesome check from the 
high price of corn, but that America and Australia, etc., are sure. The 
Times at the same time asserts that the tightness of the New-York 
money market will put a wholesome check on American operations. 

“We must not calculate on the same extent of orders from the United States 
that we have hitherto experienced,” exclaims The Leader. 

= » phe Times,No. 21527, September 7, 1853.— Ed. 
issue of September 4, 1853.— Ed. 

Australia remains. Here steps in The Observer. 

“Exports have been pushed injudiciously forward. |...) From the 74,000 tons of 
shipping now entered in London for the southern colonies, the condemnatory 
notices we gave from Adelaide, Melbourne, etc., will receive their justification. It is 
not to be denied that present prospects are not promising.” 

As to the Chinese market all reports are unanimous on the 
point that there exists a great alacrity to sell, but as great a 
reluctance to buy, the precious metals being hoarded, and any 
alteration of this state of things remains out of question as long as 
the revolutionary movement in the monster Empire has not 
accomplished its end. 

And the home market? 

“Large numbers of the power-loom weavers in Manchester and its neighbor- 
hood have followed the example of Stockport in striking for an advance of 10 per 
cent. on their wages.... The factory heads will probably find, before the end of the 
winter, that the question is not whether an increase of 10 per cent. will be conceded, 
but whether the manufacturers will allow work to be resumed at the present rate of 
wages.” 

In these terms, not to be misunderstood, The Morning Chronicle* 
alludes to the imminent decline of the domestic market. 

I have repeatedly dwelt on the immense enlargement of the old 
factories, and the unparalleled erection of new ones. I report- 
ed to you upon some new-built mills which form, as it were, 
whole manufacturing towns. I stated that at no former epoch had 
such a proportion of the floating capital accumulated during the 
period of prosperity, been directly sunk for manufacturing 
purposes’. Now, take these facts on the one hand, and on the 
other the symptoms of overstocked markets at home and abroad; 
remember also, that an unfavorable exchange is the surest means 
to precipitate over-exports into foreign markets. 

But it is the bad harvest which, above all, will drive the 
long-accumulated elements of a great commercial and industrial 
crisis to eruption. Every other sort of produce, when enhanced, 
checks its own demand; but Corn, as it becomes appreciated, is 
only the more eagerly sought for, drawing depreciation on all 
other commodities. The most civilized nation, like the most brutal 

: On September 7, 1853.— Ed. 

savage, must procure its food before it can think of procuring 
anything else, and the progress of wealth and civilization is 
generally in the same proportion, in which the labor and cost of 
producing food diminish.—A general bad harvest is in itself a 
general contraction of markets, at home and abroad. Now the 
present harvest is at least as deficient in the southern part of 
Europe, in Italy, France, Belgium, Rhenish Prussia, as it was in 
1846-47. It is by no means promising in the north-west and 
north-east. As to England, The Mark Lane Express, that Moniteur of 
the London Corn Exchange, states in its number of yesterday 
week?: 

“That the produce of wheat in the United Kingdom will be the smallest 
gathered for many years, does not admit of question. [...] The average yield will fall 
materially short in almost all parts of the kingdom, [...] independent of which it 

must be borne in mind that the breadth of land sown was, owing to the 
unpropitious weather during the seeding time, at least one-fourth less than usual.” 

This situation will not be alleviated by the delusion of 
commercial convulsions, industrial over-production, and _ bad 
harvests having been simultaneously done away with by free trade. 
On the contrary. 

“Holders,” remarks the same Mark Lane Express, “cannot yet realize the idea of 
scarcity under Free Trade. Hence few are disposed to hold heavy stocks. [...] If our 
necessities should drive us hereafter to import largely, the chances are, that we 
shall have to pay dearly for supplies.” 

The Mark Lane Express of yesterday adds: 

“There is still so large a proportion of the crops abroad that the character of 
the weather for some weeks to come will have great influence on trade. [...] The 
quality of the grain exposed in the fields has already suffered from the last rains, 
[...] and a continuance of wet might be productive of an immense amount of 
mischief.... The ultimate result of the harvest threatens to be [...] less satisfactory 
than appeared likely a week or two ago.... The accounts which have reached us the 
last few days with regard to potatoes, are less favorable than those previously 
received.... Notwithstanding the enormously large supplies from abroad during last 
week (88,833 qrs.), the reaction on prices has been only small, the fall from the 
highest point not having exceeded 1s. to 2s. per quarter.... The probable result of 
the harvest in the Baltic is on the whole of an unsatisfactory character.... According 
to the latest advices, wheat was at 60s. f. 0. b. at Dantzic, at 56s. 3d.at KOnigsberg, 54s. 
at Stettin, 58s. at Rostock.” 

The consequences of the dearth are already appearing, as in 
1847, on the political horizon. At Naples the town authorities are 
without means to employ the laborers on public works, and the 
Exchequer is unable to pay the State officers. In the Papal States, 

* Of September 5, 1853.— Ed. 

at Tolentino, Terni, Ravenna and Trastevere, there have been 
bread riots by no means mitigated by the recent arrests, the 
invasion of the Austrians, and the threat of the bastinado. In 
Lombardy the political consequences of dearth and industrial 
stagnation will not be avoided by Count Strassoldo’s imposing an 
additional tax of 6'/, kreuzen per florin, payable on the 20th Sept. 
and 10th Oct., this year, and to be levied on all payers of direct 
taxes, including the income tax and the tax upon salaries. The 
general distress in Austria is betrayed by her lingering after a new 
loan, introduced on the market as usual by the assertion that she 
wants the money only to reduce her army. The feverish anxiety of 
the French Government may be inferred from its false harvest 
accounts, its false assize of bread at Paris, and its immense 
purchases of corn on all markets. The provinces are disaffected, 
because Bonaparte feeds Paris at their expense; the bourgeoisie 
are disaffected because he interferes with commerce in behalf of 
the proletarians; the proletarians are disaffected because he gives 
wheat bread instead of brown to the soldiers, at the moment when 
peasants and workmen are menaced with the prospect of no bread 
at all; lastly, the soldiers are disaffected because of the humble 
anti-national attitude of France in the Eastern question. In 
Belgium several food riots have echoed the foolish festivities 
lavished by the Coburgs on the Austrian Archduchess.* In Prussia 
the fear of the Government is so great that several corn-brokers 
have been arrested by way of show, and the rest summoned before 
the Police President, who “requested” them to sell at “honest” 
prices. 

I conclude by again recording my opinion, that neither the 
declamation of the demagogues, nor the twaddle of the diplomats 
will drive matters to a crisis, but that there are approaching 
economical disasters and social convulsions which must be the sure 
forerunners of European revolution. Since 1849 commercial and 
industrial prosperity has stretched the lounge on which the 
counter-revolution has slept in safety. 

Written on September 13, 1853 Reproduced from the New-York