The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-02-16


prophecy and satisfy the highest aspirations |
of the human race-the Church, looking back, |
sighs for dead and buried past and with |
feeble hand tries to apply the brake. But the |
force is irresistible. If the Church cannot |
follow 1t must remain behind, and as another |
monument of folly take its lonely place on
the deserted highway Of time.
AN HISTORICAL PARALLEL-THED DAN |
GER BEFORE ENGLAND.
From the NJ Y. Times.
M. Thiers, in his recent speech to the
French Corps Legislatif on the question of a
higher tariff on English goods, drew an his
torical parallel which must have often
occurred to students of history, and which is
by no means comforting to the pride of Eng
land-between the Holland of the sixteenth
and seventeenth centuries and Great Britain
of to-day. At that period, as is well known,
the Dutch Republic, like the present English
monarchy, had spread its roots to the most
distant soils. 1t had explored with unex-
ampled hardihood tho Arctic regions; il had
founded colonies in India, the Indian Archi-
pelago and Japan, and possessed almost the
entire trade with the richest tropical islands.
1t had secured footholds in the West Indies,
and seemed about to control the North Anne
rican continent by possessing its most i'm
portant river and its best harbor The Dutch
Republic could justly boast in those centu-
ries, of being the Queen of the Seas; her
sailors, in daring and skill, we're without
equal, and her merchants showed such enter
prise and wisdom that they soon held control
of all the vast carrying trade from the East
to Europe.
Holland stood in commerce, in experience
of colonizing, and as a well-tried and victo-
rious naval power, as England does now.
| Like the inhabitants of this storm-beset
| island, the Dutch were sailors almost by
f1ra md in cfr 1c,cylac xUif a
battles on the sea they showed pluck which
| nothing ever seemed to subdue or bend. Like
| England, Holland also became great centre
| of capital and manufacture. Though little
country, she was the richest and, financially,
the most powerful in Europe. The vast ware
| houses and rich cathedrals, and spacious
dwellings, and costly galleries. which yet sur
| vive, show what an immense wealth was once
| stored up in those Dutch cities, as similar re-
suits of riches bear witness now to the pros
| perity of England For a time the finance
Of the world centred in Holland, as
it does now in England. She was the
| money changer and money lender
of Europe. Her manufactures, too, in
| la ces, woollens arms, steel wares and costly
products of art, flooded, like the English,
the whole civilized world, and were ex-
changed for the most distant products of
| India and America. She had, as Great
| Britain has now, most experienced manu-
facturers, with vast capital behind them, and
population of skilled and industrious
laborers, who could sarpass all other nations
in the economy and efficiency of their pro-
duction Yet, with all this remarkable sue
cess in commerce, colonization, manufacture
and accumulated wealth, her position was, as
yhiers observes of England now, and for
similar reasons, an insecure one; by no means
so solid, as the French statesman remarks, as
that of France, which was SO much behind her
in material success.
In one most important respect, the position
of Holland in the seventeenth century was
much stronger relatively than that of Great
Britain in the nineteenth century. The
Dutch republic had no vast prOIet0Gr6 class,
and no population of paupers and criminals
increasing at a prodigious rate, which the
State could neither relieve nor get rid of.
She had no such tremendous questions to
solve as national education, the treatment of
pauperism, and fair division of land. There
was no rebellious Ireland threatening her; no
dangerous under class ready to shake society
to its basis; no such ineradicable divisions of
class as divide England. On the con-
trary, her polity like our own, was founded
on popular education, Her common
schools" became the model for the New
England free schools. Her great men often
came from the common people. In a mora
and educational point of view, she had bet
ter future before her in 1900 than England
Z has in 1900. She perished or fell from hel
high position, undoubtedly because her soil
9 could not feed her people. single unsuc.
: cessful naval war stripped her of her supre
: macy on the seas and njured her commerce
q a change of relations between different part
i. Of the world destroyed her carrying trade; he
g colonies were lost, or their trade was com
g peted with by other countries. With the de
q cline of commerce came a loss of capital ant
g a decline of manufactures and in herreverse
Il she had no agricultural interest to fall bacl
n upon, and gradually sank to the position of
t feeble power, while France, with not one-hal
It the enterprise or the capital being sufficien
to herself in fec ding her own population
t steadily grew, and is now, as NJ. Theirs oh
# serves, on q more solid position than he
n wealthy commercial rival over the Channel.
2. The dangerous fact for England is that he
h resources lie 50 much outside of herself. He
le soil does not feed her people, and she do
70 pends for her wealth on manufactures an
y commerce. Let great naval war come an
AZ the English supremacy on the seas be do
le stroyed, and her commerce for time be an
~ initiated, without internal agricultural II
~ sources, she would be obliged continually t
st consume her accumulated wealth. Va,
is BODIES OF laboring people would be throw
le out OF employ; the paupers and dangerou
yh classes would become q countless horde; di
,h content or revolution would shake society {
of lis foundations, and production be so in
I'd peded that England would soon lose its finaI
90 cial position and sink as Holland sanl
70 Having more conflicting and dangerous ell,
ze Inents of population than ever had HOLLAND
he her fall would be by no means SO gradual {
We | peaceful The sun of England when IL do,