The Press. — London, England, 1857-09-12 00:00:00

THE PRESS, SEPTEMBER 12,1857. has hit the truth, though not altogether, we presume, in the sense he himself intended. There is something, we are well aware, which Lord PANMURE prefers to even aristocratic sympathies. Charity with him begins in the strictest sense of the word " at home." "As the small pebble stirs the peaceful lake," a " Dowb " agitates the serene bosom of PANMURE ; but whether it makes wider and wider circles, i 3 a question which the British public is rather disposed at present to answer in the negative. But, to quit his Lordship awl re gard the question generally , the old soldier's pr o pos al would, even supposing his allegations true, be only from bad to worse—from pro vincial favourites into bureaucratic and benumbing centralisation. The influence and power of our great county magistrates are the best counterpoise we have to this growing evil. And if they will conde scend to take our advice, we should recommend them to look rather more sharply after their own privileges than their apathy iu regard to the Militia indicates a disposition to do. A valuable Parliamentary report upon the Public Moneys was issued yesterday. A Select Committee of the House of Commons, consisting of Sir F. BARING (chairman), Lord STANLEY, Sir J. GRAHAM, Mr. HENLEY, Mr. G. A. HAMILTON, Mr. WILSON, Mr. ELLICE, Sir O. C. LEWIS, Sir H. WILLOUGHBY, Mr. BOWYER, and Mr. WILLIAMS, was appointed on the 12th of May last "to inquire into the receipt, issue, " and audit of moneys in the Exchequer Pay-office and Audit Depart " merit." The Report of the Committee is now published. The prin cipal recommendation is the immediate improvement of the system of audit by a large extension of the duties and powers of that board, and its erection into a great department of State, under a special head, and which should no longer transmit the public accounts to Par liament through the Treasury, but should have direct communi cation wit:r Parliament, and annually to submit the accounts of the past year to a select committee of the House appointed by the Speaker. With respect to the mode of preparing the public ac counts, the Committee recommend the extension of the appropriation check, now applied only to the naval and military expenditure, and the expenditure of the Woods and Forests and Public Works, to the accounts of the income and expenditure kept at the Treasury, to the accounts of the Revenue departments, and to the various accounts comprising the expenditure of the votes for Civil Services, including civil contingencies, and that, in order to strengthen the check upon Government with regard to the issues of money, the accounts be daily checked by the Paymaster-General, who should " cease to be a " political officer discharging his duties by deputy, but that he should " become the acting and efficient head of the Pay-office, performing " his duties in person." There are other recommendations of detail, but the above are the main objects recommended to be attained by the Committee for a more efficient control over the public money than at present exists. The Committee conclude their report by admitting that " the important and extensive changes which they have suggested " cannot all be immediately carried into effect ;" but they believe that " the continued attention of Parliament and of the Executive Govern " ment to the subject will secure, at no distant date, all the objects " embraced in their recommendations." One good effect, it appears probable, will result from Dr. Limo szoNE's travels in Africa. Public attention will be now fully turned towards that lung neglected quarter of the world, and the only effective step at length taken to suppress the abominable slave trade by the substitution of a more sound and legitimate commerce. Dr. LIVING. STONE'S appearance before the Manchester Chamber of Commerce this week will, we trust, lead to some definite result. Of the capacity of Africa to supply us amply with cotton, and sugar, and rice, besides other products, no doubt now exists ; the only point is, how to induce the native chiefs to turn their attention to commerce instead of slave hunting. This can only be effected by the gradual opening up of the country by means of expeditions, and by the foundation of a regular trade at certain points, by the establishment of factories and store houses, and finallyby the creation there of towns. In fact, if we want to open Africa we must colonise it to some extent. We must have more than one Sierra Leone, for your merchant is your best missionary in such a country as Africa. The people are eager to trade ; the native chiefs readily appreciate the material advantages commerce gives ; show them that it is less to their advantage to sell their domestic slaves than to employ them in the cultivation of cotton and sugar for our market, and the foreign trade in slaves will receive its death blow. We may rely upon it that it is only by trade and com merce that we can destroy the slave trade we have so long and so vainly struggled to put down; and to found that commerce and induce the native African to prefer its advantages to the profits of slave dealing, we must have armed trading expeditions,—not expeditions for mere scientific purposes, but expeditions originated in private enterprise, and aided by Government, to ascend the rivers to open friendly trading relations by means of presents and barter with the dif ferent chiefs. Expeditions by land are perhaps too hazardous to attempt; by water there is less danger, more ease for escape in case of danger, and the country is more readily penetrated. the river-bordering countries possess inexhaustible resources of natural wealth; ivory, cotton, palm oil, camwood, and mineral wealth abound. The natives arc eager to trade, and there can be no doubt that if a trade is once opened at any fresh spot upon the western coast, that it would rapidly become self-sustaining. We venture to think that this question of opening up Africa is one of a practical nature, and well worthy of attention. An expedition can be fitted out at the cost of about 5,000/. This sum, or twice this sum, might be safely deducted by Government from the existing yearly cost of the African squadron, and given in aid of African trilling expeditions, with a much greater certainty of benefit than any Chit can or does at present arise from the blockade ; and if private enterprise be added, we see no obstacle to the establishment of an extended and legi- 893 timate trade with Africa, and in course of time to tho extinction of the foreign slave trade. In AUOUSTE COMTE, whose death at Paris is just reported, the philosophic world has lost one of its most original thinkers and. writers. He was born at Montpelier in 1798, within a year or two of the close of the eighteenth century, and came of a family which was eminently Catholic and monarchical in its predilections. Educated at one of the French Lycees, he gave very early proofs not only of a highly speculative turn of mind, but also of a dissatisfaction with the existing methods of knowledge and forms of society, and a belief that he was himself destined to become the Bacon of the nineteenth century, and to initiate a revolution in the world's philosophy. Mathematics and the physical sciences engrossed much of his attention, but before reaching the age of manhood he had already turned his attention to social questions, and had become possessed of the idea that the time had come when all science and philosophy must be treated from the social as the supreme point of view. It was with aims of this kind. fermenting in his mind that, whilst still a youth, he was drawn within the vortex of the Saint-Simonia.n school, which arose at Paris soon after the Restoration of 1815. The genius of' SAINT-SIMON, then in the maturity of his intellect, drew around him, as by some magnetic attraction, a number of ardent disciples whom he indoctrinated with his views, and almost all of whom have since become distinguished in the history or the literature of their country. Of these COMTE was the youngest. and such high hopes did the master entertain of his youthful pupil, that when the school of SAINT SIMON resolved to put forth an exposition of their peculiar tenets, it was on AUGUSTE COMTE that the preparation of the work devolved. The " Systeme de Politique Positive " (as the work was called) did not entirely satisfy SAINT • SIMON, who acid that "it expounded " the generalities of his system from the Aristotelian point of view, " but overlooked. their religious and sentimental aspect." This diver gence between their views ended in their mutual separation in the year 1825. In the following year M. COMTE was seized with what he termed a " cerebral crisis," which it was at the time believed could only end in insanity. He recovered, however, and lived to promulgate his own philosophy, and to give his name to a school of his own. During the last seven-and-twenty years the leisure time of M. Comrs was bestowed on the production of a series of original works devoted to the elucidation of the principles of his " Positive Philosophy," and in which, to use the expression of a writer in the " English Cycle pmdia," " even those who have no sympathy with that system "in its fundamental doctrines and general spirit, unite in re " cognising great vigour of intellect, and an extraordinary " power of generalisation on all kindred subjects." COMTE 'S first and greatest work was his " Cours de Philosophie Positive," published in six large volumes, between 1830 and 1842. " In this work," to quote the work already referred to, "he propounds " his main doctrine, namely, that the human mind, by a natural law, " has passed through three successive stages in its thoughts upon all " subjects—namely (1), the theological stage, or that in which pheno " mena are accounted for by the supposition of the agency of super " natural beings to produce them ; (2), the metaphysical stage, in " which, whilst supernatural agency is got rid of, certain abstract " ideas, such as nature," harmony,' and the like, take their place in " men's thoughts as the productive causes of everything ; and (3), " lastly, the positive stage, in which, shaking off both unseen spiritual " agencies and abstractions, the mind grasps the notion of' the universe " in all its departments as proceeling according to certain laws or " uniform sequences, to be ascertained by observation and induction." These principles, we should add, he subsequently applied in a prac tical manner to the entire system of human knowledge. In 1843 M. COMTE published two short treatises, one on analytical geometry, and another on astronomy, which were followed in 1844 by his " Disconrs sur l'Esprit Positif," enforcing the ideas of his larger work in a popu lar way. Soon after this date an attachment to a lady whose death left him miserable revealed to him the meagreness and hollowness of his philosophic system in a religious point of view, and induced him to attempt the delineation of a new religious system, consistent with the doctrines of his former works, and for this purpose he published his " Discours stir I'Ensemble du Positivisme," and his "Cults Systematique de l'Humanite," in which he proposes the worship of humanity itself as represented by its greatest men of all ages. These he arranges in a regular cale-idar, assigning tweve to preside over the twelve months of the year, and nominating for each week and day a long list of minor celebrities. His countrymen, however, were not prepared for such a development of Positivism ; and in his list published work, entitled " Systeme de Politique Positive, on Traits do Sciologie, instituent la Religion de l'Humanite," he complains that his greatest sorrow at the approach of old age is to find that he can see no one in all the world worthy to be consecrated by him as his successor in the Chair of his new philosophy and religion, the Pontificate of which he may be said to have assumed, inasmuch as he not only preached its doctrines, but actually performed the marriage ceremony and the last funeral rites over such of his disciples as called upon him so to do. The intelligence that the Persians have evacuated Herat should be received with caution. We shall be glad to hear that it is confirmed ; but Lord PALMERSTON, it will not be forgotten, very recently expressed the gravest doubts of the good faith of Persia, and his firm belief that Herat would not be evacuated according to treaty. It will bo instructive to discover that at the very moment the Noble Lord was exciting the apprehensions of the country about Persian treachery, Herat was surrendered in perfect good faith. We wait with some impatience to learn whether Lord PALMERSTON'S apprehensions were well founded, or the result of a reprehensible want of sound information. `, •