The Press.
London, England, 1858-08-21 00:00:00

1858.

797

the four quarters of the globe would contribute
in their several degrees to England's wealth.
Conflicting interests are inseparable from the
carrying out of such enterprizes with safety to
the adventurers. One line might be remunerative,
whilst another, from accident or improper
management, might result in loss ; but as in the
aggregate a good dividend is sure, and as there
are lines which are essential for imperial pur-
poses, but commercially unremunerative, it may
be said if the public Exchequer sustained such
lines, it would be only fair that it should also
profit by those which gave a good dividend upon
the outlay. The solution of this difficulty may
be disposed of by the incorporation of a limited
number of companies, on which would devolve the
management of the several lines under Parlia-
mentary control, making the shares in each
company small—a limited number only to be held
by any individual, and in all cases guaranteed
a certain rate of interest by Government ; for
this guarantee each company should contribute
according to its net income. A proper remunera-
tion to the Exchequer by these arrangements
would be inevitably available ; public confidence
would be secured, and, above all, the control of
every line would be in the hands of England as
well as the profits.

TILE " LIBERAL" SOPHISM.
IF Mr. BERNAL OsnonxE anticipated praise or

popularity as probable returns for his Dover ora-
tion, he has been " pretty particular considerably"
disappointed. Ilis indignant outcries against the
men who dared supplant his all-accomplished
patron have awakened no echo; his announce-
ment of the sacrifices he would have made—if a
little thing had not prevented him—has gained
no credit. Instead of flattering consolations for
the loss of office and the " craving void left
" aching in the breast" by a blank quarter-day,
he is received even by the Opposition press with
a greeting similar to that which Milton records
as given to the first Whig on his return to ran-
demonium—" One universal hiss."
On all hands he has partaken largely of what
is familiarly known as " monkey's allowance."
We confess to having been especially diverted by
the lesson in trisyllables read to him by the
liveliest of our weekly contemporaries. As an
argumentum ad hominem nothing could be more
appropriate. Truly there can be little regret for
a " Liberalism" which was attested only by total
abstinence from useful reforms and a systematic
connivance at jobbing.
It ought, however, to be observed that other
great authorities besides the Palmerstonian
" spruch-sprecher" have abused their favourite
trisyllable most grossly, as well as obstinately
declined to deal fairly with the longer word
" Conservative." The ambiguous term Liberal
—sometimes a common term of praise, sometimes
the rallying-cry of a most heterogeneous party—
has been freely used as an implement of sophistry
by the Opposition press for several months past ;
and even our contemporary aforesaid has not
wholly abstained from " paltering with it in a
" double sense." We have heretofore expressed
our wish that the application of the word
" Liberal" as a party name were less vague—
less suited to denote an apparent connection be-
tween politicians of extreme views, like Messrs.
BRIGHT and Fox, and more moderate men, like
the Peelites (who are Conservatives historically
as well as in principle) and the remnant of the
old Whigs. Doubtless, the Opposition gain an
unfair advantage from the use of a common de-
signation, which
i gives them a pretence for claim-
ing a majority n general, while practically they
find themselves in a minority on almost every
particular question. But the fallacy to which
we would now call the attention of our readers,
and which Conservatives ought to expose in
argument as they have often refuted it in fact,
arises not from the vagueness of the tern;
" Liberal," but from its ambiguity—not from its
having too comprehensive a meaning, but from