The Press.
London, England, 1853-07-16 00:00:00

THE PRESS.

attraction of the gold-fields renders it inex-
pedient. But Australia is not the only spot
in the British dominions to which the tide of
convict emigration may be turned. In the
vast regions which extend northward and
westward of Canada—far beyond the limits of
the province—far out of the way of voluntary
settlers— there is room and space enough
to try this neeessaly experiment. We 'lame a
Siberia, if we choose to make use of it. Con-
viet colonies may there be planted without
either driving our free emigrants to remon-
strance and revolt, or endangering society at
home by the unchecked aecumulattion of
clime. Will no legislator entertain the propo-
sition ?

THE QUART Eitl REITEN lIE A CCO 1I wrs.
Wk.. promised last week that we would coin-
ment upon the effects likely to be produced by
the measures of t tur paragon Financier Minister
upon the favourable condition of things which
the quarterly accounts of revenue exhibit.
We admitted readily the indications of com-
mercial and manufaeturing prosperity which
those accounts and the tables of the Board of
Trade afford. The increase on the quarter
ending sth July, 185:1, as compared with the
quarter ending sth July, 1852, is no loss than
1,116,636/. The excess of income over expendi-
ture, at the expiration of the financial year end-
ing sth April b:st, amounted to the large sum of
2;160,7411. ; and, supposing the tide of events
to have advanced smoothly and satisfactorily—
seeing, its we have already stated, that upon the
very first quarter of the present year there is
an excess of more than a million in the re-
venue as compared with last year—it is really
difficult to be too sanguine as to what the ex-
cess of income, under prudent management,
might have been on the sth April, 1854. Cer-
tainly no one can deny, that the condition of
the public revenue afforded the CHAstem.t.oa
of the ExenzouEit more favourable grounds for
his operations than has been the lot of any of
his predecessors. Let us now see how he has
taken advantage of it.
Mr. DISRAELI, last December, adopted the
unusual and most hazardous course of antici-
pating the ordinary financial statement of
April, and he propounded a plan which in
volved, in point of fact, a Budget for two sue-
cessive years at the least. It was a bold and
a manly undertaking to lay his financial plans
before the piddle at the earliest possible period,
and under the most disadvantageous circum-
stances. We undertake to prove to our
readers—contrasting the financial plans of
Mr. DISRAELI with those of Mr. GLADSTONE—
that the former was marked by consummate
caution, as well as ability ; while the. latter
(we deny not its ability) has evinced a want of
foresight and prudence which we certainly
should not have expected from the experience
and general character of Mr. GLADSToN E.
As a preliminary, it is necessary to ~,lance at
the position of the two Financial MilliSterS
when their statements were respectively inade.
D Mr. ootA Eli, as we have stated, had to antici,
pate nearly one-third of the financial year,
both as regards income and expenditure : he
might have talented to be rush, for then there
was no prospect of a foreign war. Mr. GLAD-
STONE, in April, had the advantage, and used
it, of Mr. DIsRAELI'S statement. Nearly two
and a half millions was the ascertained excess
of income over expenditure, and there was
a balance in the Exchequer of 7,850,0001. Mr.
GLADSTONE, therefore, had at once a knowledge
of his adversary's game, and cards in his
hand, it' we may be excused the expression,
which, if played cautiously, could not fail to
be played triumphantly. But there was a
need of eaution : at no time are the finances of
England to be tampered with, anti there was
a cloud in the East which Mr. GLAIS4TONE must
have been aware portended or might portend
a hurricane.
Let us turn now to the measures. Mr.
DISRAELI proposed operating in the way of
reductions upon the tea duties and the malt
tax—both consumers taxes—and raising the
price of what may be considered necessaries ;
the latter also long considered a grievance.

SATURDAY,

anti operating injuriously in many ways upon
the agricultural interest. Mr. DISRAELI, there-
fore, while he framed a Keheme—which no one
can deny was in strict accordance with the
policy in favour of which the country had pro
nouuced its verdict at the general election—
adopted likewise the- course—the only one
open—of doing au act of justice to the English
firmer. But there wits another characteristic
in Mr. DISRAELI'S financial policy. It is now
an 'axiom. that reductions of duties affecting
articles of. genentl consumption will gnulually
replace themselves, and therefore, though the
reduction of the tea and malt ditties might
cause a temporary chasm in the revenue, it
was a chasm which the increased consunipti4at
would soon supply. In the Budget of Mr.
DisnAtim, therefore, there WaR nothing which
involved a certain and permanent loss to the
revenue.

But further. Mr. Dismextt commenced his
operations by proposing to Parliament, not
Ins reductions, but his increases, of taxation.
He adopted the course of ascertaining, in the
first instance, what augmentation of taxation
Parliament would sanction, previous to asking
for those remissions which he considered wise
and politic. Accordingly, he took the issue
upon the increase of the house tax. Had he
taken it upon the income tax, or any of his
proposed mitigations, he would have been the
Minister still ; but, in the course he adopted,
we aver that, although he sacrificed office, he
displayed the prudence, caution, and honesty
which become the Financial Minister of Great
Britain. _ _

.....
Mr. tli.AicrotiF. anticipated his own Budget
by a scheme which Wilk to place him on the
highest pedestal of British statesmen. The
commutation of the nine millions and a half
of what he called the patriarchal stock was
but a minor part of this great scheme. B y
this minor operation the country was indeed
to be secured the moderate saving of yn,oooi. a
year. But the establishment of " a permanent
" irredeemable public debt of Two-and-a-Half
" per Cent. was the ultimate aim and key of
" his plan." His Exchequer Bonds were to be
" the popular current securities," limited, it is
true, in the first instance, to thirty zillions ;
" but the House was by no means to assume
" that thirty millions was the extent to which
" Parliament would go." The other two sr-
cies of new stock in the original proposition
were not to be limited even to the moderate
sum of thirty millions.
We must confine ourselves for the present
to the results of the great scheme for the con-
version of the national debt. Has it been
successful .evert as regards the minor stock of
nine and a halt' millions upon which Ali..
GLADSTONE assured us a saving of at least
25,000/. a year was to be effected? By a re-
turn moved for by Mr. DISRAELI it appeal's
that only 1,39,4,004/. 14s. 10d. has been ex-
changed for any of the new stocks, and that
out of this sum there has been taken in Mr.
OLAnsTosx'a " popular current securities " the
transeendental amount of 5,170/. lt4i4. 4d. !!!
The result, therefore, of this great scheme
for the conversion of the national debt—Mr.
GLADSTONE'S first financial proposition—can
only be described as simple, utter, ludicrous,
failure. The country stands committed to pay
in money, to the holders of this patriarchal
stock, on the sth of January, 1t454, more than
eight millions—which may, perchance, have
to be raised under the disadvantageous eircum
stances of a continental war!!! and the antici-
pated saving of 25,0001. a year be thus con-
verted into a positive loss. Space will not
admit of our prosecuting the subjeet further in
our present number, but we hope to resume
it in our next. •

THE CZAR AND THE SULTAN-THE

POPE IN DANGER.
NICHOLAS the Czar has proclaimed the tenth
crusade. Seven hundred years have elapsed
since Pope URBAN 11. decreed the first. The
descendant of PrrEn the Great has donned
the hair shirt and mantle of PETER the Hermit ;
and all Muscovy resounds with the cry of
Ilirrowlyma ext pre-dila !"
It has always been accepted as an evidence
of the nonage of civilisation that on nine succes-

RIX 16, 1853.

sive occasions, between the eleventh and thir-

teenth centu►ies, Western Europe should have

ISprung up at the call of fanaticism, and pre
cipitated itself on Asia for the gratification of a
sentiment; and it may be assumed as a proof

that the Emperor NICHOLAS eonsiders Russia to

be still so fair in the rear of enlightenment as

to rally at his summons round the " blazing
cross," and direct, its hordes upon the scene
Av hi& witnessed the ancient struggles of Chris-
tendom for the liberation of the Holy Places.
The progress of events has, however. worked
one remarkable change, which distinguishes
the crusade of the nineteenth century from
that of the thirteenth. The latter afforded a

vent for the rage of the Latin Church against
the schismatic Greeks ; whilst, in the sacred
war which is now impending, the champions
of the Greek Church are preparing to enforce
retribution for the wrongs inflicted by the
Popes. In one commanding feature both
agree—the Emperor NICHOLAS, like the Em-
peror BALDWIN, is preparing to reduce Con
stantinople on his march to Jerusalem.
It has long been notorious that the
squabbles of the Greeks and Latins who have
access conjointly to the churches of Beth-
lehem and Jerusalem have been a reproach to
civilisation and an insult to Christianity.
And now, for the adjustment of this clerical
wrangle, the wide breadth of Western Europe
is to encounter the strength of Russia and the
North on the shores of the Bosphorus.
When, some years ago, the Emperor NICHO-
LAS made it visit to Italy during the conva-
lescence of the Empress, he so thy humbled
himself as to solicit from the Pope permission
to erect a building at Rome for the worship of
the Greeks, as a similar privilege had been
tacitly conveyed to the Protestants. This was
sternly, and we have been told even offensirely,
refused ; the Pope assuring the Emperor that
to yield such a concession would alienate every
member of the Church of Rome from the
college of cardinals down to the humblest
priest in every village of Christendom.
The irritation caused by this refusal was re-
vived in the course of last year, when the Em-
peror of FRANCE, in order to conciliate these
same cardinals and priests, despatched M.
LAVALETTE to Constantinople, who obtained
from the good, easy Sultan certain privileges
for the Church of Rome at the Holy Places,
which of necessity had to be conferred at the
expense of the Greeks, at least by giving
superior advantages to the Romanists.
On the intelligence reaching St. Petersburg
that the Pope had thus stolen a march upon
the Patriarch, the Emperor forthwith des
patched the Prince MENSCHIKOFF to the Porte
to demand the instant reed of the Sultan's
ill-considered concession tea the Church of
Rome. The Sultan, with the same insouciance
with which he had granted the favour, agreed
to recal it ; perhaps somewhat in astonishment
at the unintelligible importance which the
potentates of two empires attached to the rival
pretensions of two sets of competing priests.
But the readiness with which he made and
unmade his pledges, about one and the same
arrangement, not unnaturally attracted the at-
tention of the Czar, and led to his further inad-
missible demand that, as the two Churches
had been now restored to their relative shalt*
quo at Jerusalem, the Sultan should bind him-
self, in an unconstitutional form, that what he
had thus solemnly done, on the representation
of Russia, should not ho again heedlessly un-
done, at the solicitation of France.
The foreseen refusal has led to the an-
nouncement of war, and this we cannot
regard otherwise than as an emanation of
that deeper and more envenomed feeling
which inflames the two militant Churches of
the East and the West; and which, more
than the mere lust of conquest, impels the
Czar, by the capture of Constantinople, to
compass the kng-desired humiliation of Rome.
Once master of the Sultan's territory, the
Emperor, as the self-created head of the Greek
Church, would not be long in proclaiming its
right to the exclusive possession of the Holy
Places, and the consequent expulsion of the
Latin priesthood from their interior, if not
their precincts. And looking to this, and
all the inevitable provocatives to hostility
which must follow, it is no groundless