Northern Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1859-05-23 00:00:00

WHAT IS OPPRESSION ?

IT is proclaimed by the Emperor Louis NAPOLEON
of France, that he goes to Italy, with his armed
hosts, numbering some hundred and fifty thousand
men, to rescue the people from oppression. This
has been the burthen of his manifestos and his
orders of the day. And this is his excuse, to all
whom it may concern, for the war on which he has
entered. His cousin, the Prince Napoleon, in his
address to the Fifth Corps of the " Army of Italy,"
has reiterated the Imperial pretext. He tells them,
" The country which was the cradle of ancient
civilisation and of modern renaissance is about to
owe its liberty to you; you will deliver that country
for ever from its oppressors—from those eternal
enemies of France whose name is associated in our
history with all our struggles and all our victories.

The reception," he adds, " which the Italian people
give to their liberators, bears witness to the justice
of the cause which the Emperor defends. Vice
l'Empereur ! Tire la France ! Five Inclepen-
dance Italienne." Now all this is very fine. But
what does it really, in sober seriousness, mean ?
What is this oppression, from which oppressors like
these BUONAPARTES profess to have gone with their
legions to set the Italians free ?
The oppression of a people is the crushing or
keeping of them down by severity and injustice—
the denial to them of their rights to which, as
members of society, they are justly entitled—the
witholding from them of those privileges which
belong to them in civilised countries the imposing
upon them burthens and disabilities which are
unrighteously exactive and severe. We find some of
the best descriptions of oppression in Holy Writ,
—some of the strongest denunciations of it also,
—and there it is generally coupled with injustice
and wrong, and they are the wicked and the proud
that inflict it. We read of the people being
" brought low through oppression." We are told,
" If thou seest the oppression of the poor, and the
violent perverting of judgment and justice in a
province, marvel not at the matter ; for He that is
' higher than the highest regardeth, and there be
higher than they,"—forcibly implying, that it is
a wrong that will not go unheeded or unpunished.
Again, we have the Almighty represented as de-
claring, "For the oppression of the people, I will

arise, and set him in safety." The true religious

fast is described as "to undo the heavy burdens, and
let the oppressed go free." And among things which
are included in the divine precept, " learn to do
well," is prominently placed the obligation to " seek
judgment, and relieve the oppressed." And in all
this we see that it is not according to right—as in
the eyes of Divine Wisdom, right is estimated—to
harass a people with unreasonable or unjust severity,
whether of restriction or exaction. In a state of
society—in any settled community every,member
of it is justly entitled to the utmost civil liberty that
is compatible with the interests and happiness of the
whole. This civil liberty is the not being restrained
by any law, but what conduces in a greater degree
to the public welfare. "To do what we will," it has
been well observed, "is natural liberty : to do what
we will, consistently with the interest of the com-
munity to which we belong, is civil liberty,—that is
to say, the only liberty to be desired in a state of
civil society." And any unnecessary restriction of
this civil liberty is more or less an oppression :
because this restraint itself is an evil ; and this evil
ought to be counterbalanced by

some greater

advantage.

Now, considered upon these principles, which are
those of reason and justice, there is probably not a
State of Continental Europe, the people of which
are not, in some degree, labouring under oppression.

* Saturday Review.

THE VOX POP ULI FOR NON-INTER-
VENTION.

AN eminent writer on political philosophy has
aptly put the question, " How is the popular voice
to find a legitimate place in the government of
nations ?" This is undoubtedly an important
problem, and one that it deeply concerns all who
rule under free institutions to consider. But "to
solve this problem," it is observed, " it must first be
ascertained what functions can be legitimately
discharged by the people,—what originating active
power can be entrusted to them without violating
the unity of the ruling will." And then it is asked,
'• In what cases may the voice of the people become,
in any sense, the voice of God, and require us to
conform to it ? These cases," he adds, " appear to
be chiefly three, corresponding with the three obvious
uses of the representative system, of which the
acknowledged object is, to prevent oppression, to
secure fit governors, and to exercise that free agency
which is necessary to raise a people from the con-
sciousness and the degradation of slavery." Into
the discussion of this, however, we are not now
about to enter at large,—it may probably serve us
for an article on some other occasion. But what we
now adduce the principle involved in it to do, is
to consider it for a moment in its bearing upon the
non-intervention movement that is increasing and
strengthening in all directions around us.

Vox populi, vox Dei, is an old apothegm. And
doubtless there are times and occasions when the
voice of the people does become, in some sense, the
voice of God. 'Whenever, for instance, as it has been
said of mercy, that

" It is an attribute to God himself,"

whenever the voice of the people is the utterance of
any such divine attribute, and it can be said of it,

" That earthly power doth then show likest God's,"—

then, assuredly, the voice of the people is, in one
sense, the voice of GOD. Peace is one such attribute.
He is a GoD of peace, no less than of mercy. It is
one of the divine blessings, is peace; and when the
vox populi is raised for peace, that voice, we repeat,
in a certain sense, may be considered as the vox
Dci.

The voice of the people of England, then, is being
raised higher and higher for peace,—for the main-
tenance of our neutral position, in relation to that
most criminal war that has been entered upon in
Italy,—raised in order that this country may enjoy
the blessings of peace. And it is certainly most
satisfactory to see, that as the movement increases
and developes itself, there is a growing intelligence
and comprehension as to the subject to which it has
reference. " Your memorialists," says one of the
memorials that have within the last two or three
days been adopted—" and they believe the English
people at large, have no sympathy with either of the
despotic rulers engaged in this mischievous war, and
they would respectfully but most earnestly pray the
British Government to maintain inviolate that policy
of non-intervention which has been recently and so
emphatically advocated from the hustings, not only