The Dorset County Express and Agricultural Gazette.
Dorchester, Dorset, England, 1862-12-30 00:00:00

POLITICS IN DORSETSHIRE,

It is a great comfort to mediocrity that it Is pretty
sure one day to ride the high horse and sit in judgment
on the rest of the world. The most depreciated, the
the most self-humbled, will sooner or !Met enjoy a
palming ascendancy. Here it .31dOr Dorsetshlre, that
never had lattice &lib t'd and that was chiefly known
for tUrable-dneb cottages, pinched up labourers, and
anneal distribution of useful garments, preaching from
Its chalk downs to all the world. Never was better
wisdom delivered in more oracular fashion. Whatever
Dorsetahire was ten or twenty years ago, to-day it is a
Land of Goshen. The perfect and no doubt well-earned
complacency of tone adopted by its magnates seggesta
that it is even I Garden of Eden. The Northern opera-
tives are complimented for their resignation, doubtless
the effect of Inds-cased knowledge. The millowners are
civilly admitted to have done their best, Mr. Cobden's
amount of the wetter, and his illustration from a similar
egricultural disaster, are frankly accepted. Mr. Bright',
on the other hand, is an angry fellow. "The United
States have done for themselves in European estimation.
We have now had enough of Detnocracy for manya day.
Our ownlhumble and old-fashioned institutions will do
for us. ItAly has been wise to adopt a Constitutional
Monarchy Instead of any new.fiingled french notions,
By the bye, the French Emperor Wonld do well to get
tint of Rome. If he leaves on Monday, the Pope and
hie Cardinale will have to walk out on Tuesday—earlier
still, some people say. The best Catholics now distin-
guish between temporal and spiritual power. There is
not the same need for Austria to walk ont of Venice, to
which her claim is older a good deal than nufe to
Gibraltar, and better. Modena was a very had tkwera-
ment. Southern Italy ha a waked up from a sleep of
ages," Stich questions in the rest of the world areapt
to be embarrassed with conflicting conidderations. Old
men, much vrayworts in the match of politics, fretted in
every limb and *tinkled in erety feature, from the
early erowsfoot to the stioketi 'OS and the deep cheek
furrows, remernbei• Imo* erten hopes have been excited
and disappointed, and how many fair beginnings have
ended in foul shame and disaster. But at Blandford
political wisdom is still juvenile, simple, and hopeful.
It cornea from those cheery hills as the distant echoer of
the Ranz des Vaehes. In the South of England the
cottage children turn out to See What to them is often a
rare sight, a flock of sheep following the shepherd,
instead of being driven. This pleasant Scriptural
memento is always from Dorsetshire. When Mr. Port-
man or Mr. %et-, Saymer sweetly descant on the happi-
ness of England and the aberrations of the order world,
one can nee, with no great stretch of fancy, the whole
county following him. We will take the liberty to say
they could not follow better teaching than they heard
at Blandford on Saturday. We will not ask them to
take it 'quite for Gospel, but if Dorsetshire be, as
reputed, in a very primitive state, let it begin with
belief. After a few years it may not only be advanced
enough, but may also have some occasion, to ask its
county members how far their wisdom has been justified
1 by events.
The fact is, there is nothing eine to talliabont. When
a man is prosperous in all his relations and getting on
in the world, he very naturally feels an immense supe-
riority to the poor creatures who from weakness or
I folly, or wickedness, have come to grief sal around hilm.
No sooner is he seated comfortable at his fireside than
he begins to enlarge on the mistakes of his neighbours,
far and near. As the fire burns up, and the dinner
takes effect, he tells good stories, gives nicknames,
, probes a wound, reveals a scandal, announces a
, smash," gives a warning, and sits or stands in the
Englishman's after-dinner attitude amid the ruins of the
world. Howling misery and blank desolation are to him
no more than the storm that rages round his chimney top
and whistles through the keyhole. Perhaps his own
turn may coins—everybody's does; but we could al-
most hope it will not, lie seems so unprepared. Here
are Dorsetshire and Lancashire, how have they changed
aides! HOW little did Lancashire expect even two
years ago to be the object of respectful and considerate
compassion to Dorsetshire, and to stated side by side
with a hundred labourers receiving the prize coats and
framed testimonials! But a few years bank the
cotton-spinner taught his children at once geography
and kindness by explaining pictures of the Dorsetahire
labourer, his hut, his bent form, and his scanty gar-
ments. His turn is come, and he is now receiving
alins and old clothes from the much-pitied county.
We will not intrude a misgiving whether all be really
right there. Lord S. G. Osborne, indeed, drops a word
about improving tenants dismissed without compensa-
tion, as if the picture-had its dark side even now.
We would rather believe that Dorsetehire shares the

general prosperity of the South of England. On this
assumption, we will only suggest to her representatives
and her leaders that this is the season for providing
against that evil day which must some time Teton). All
the world is telling Dincashire and Cheshire that they
ought to hose foreseen the periodical disaster, laid by
money, checked speCulation, and sought supplies of
material. Dersetshire, v,e presume, has now some
such lesson to learn. What can it do to secure con-
stant and profitable employment for its population
There is the money ; there is the leisure. Now is the
appointed time.

'But we have something to say about our own humble
selves in this contrast between Dorset past and present.
Time was when it was assumed and believed in that
credulous county, teat we were animated by a special
and fiendish malignity towards it. It could do nothing
to satisfy us; the dislike was mutual. Not a man of
the county could open Lis mouth without a skit at us.
After a careful perusal of the proceedings at Blandford
last Saturday, we can only congratulate the speakers
on their adigent study of this journal and their most
flattering agreement with us. There is not a point on
which we can detect the least divergence of opinion or
sentiment. The happy accord goes down to such
minor points as the punishment and confinement of
hardened offenders, the better protection of life and
property, and our cautions against false , imprisonment
on the allegation of lunacy. We begin to ask what are
the politics of Dorsetahire, and what reason has it to
stand apart from that public opinion to which we as
well as Parliament bow, and which is the real Govern-
ment of this country r There is a growing difficulty in
disagreement among us. A man must be very sin-
gular or very paradoxical to flnd a separate perch. As
the Prouder observed the other day, the Agricultural
interest has little left to do, in a political sense, now
that there are no Corn Laws to be fought for. The
Agricultural societies have become mere charitable in-
stitutions for the distribution of gifts to deserving ob-
jects. They must, travel North into* Lancashire, or
cross the Hems to France, Italy, and America., in order ,
to find something to say. It will soon be necessary to
proclairii a reward for it new opinion. True, we have '
nothing to do at this moment but to sit still, America
is working out a sublime theory to its practical results,
and all we have to do is to watch the progress of the
experiment, as we should the movements of a water-
spout or an iceberg. We are content to be not wholly
disinterested spectators. Meanwhile there is silence in
our political world, or only words of mutual respect,
and agreement. , Lancashire and Doraetshire, the lion
and the lamb, sit down together, and wait the result.
They whisper soft oonfideouea ens another.
Even a speaker at Blandford is obliged to measure his
tones, to bate his breath, and to crave forbearance, lest
he should offend either of the belligerents four thou-
sand miles off. The market-table and the sheepfold
must be neutral. Everything is reported, and perhaps
even so inoffensive a gentleman as Mr. Ker Seymer may
see his name in a despatch, and furnish one more plea
for Canadian annexation. —Time&