New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1882-05-06
NEU-YORK IGNORANCE or THE CNITEL
STATES

Il
One of the strongest men now in the Gov
eminent in England Sir William Vernon llar-
court, the Hcme Secretary, lately made lively
speech concerning the droll ignorance of Eng
land prevalent in London, which is not without
interest for New-Y OrkcIs, who fancy that they
know the United States We find it appropri-
ately published in The HcrdId, from which we
quote:
II il astonishing what Ignorance prevails in London
society respecting the opinions Of the English people.
had the opportunity Of taking with al intelligent dipo
matst inst arriy Cd in England and said to him. will
give You piece Of useful advice. Don't pay TOO much
attention to what you hear in London When you have
listened the gossps Of the clubs the murnurs of the
lobby the spite OF the drawing rooms when you nave
collected the opinions Of influential and wellnfOrmed
people, when you have read all the papers, which are
never mistaken, when you have collected the cacua-
tons Of the stock Exchange and find that al agree, then
Won may be absolutely that this thing is not
ing to happen IL the result of'my political
observation of thirty years in London society
Precisely the same things might more truth
fully be said about New-YOrk. Of this Nation
of fifty millions of people, occupying continent,
from the Atlantic to the Pacific, its feelings,
its tendencies, its public opinion, there is often
a less accurate knowledge in New York than
in Oshkosh Under the guidance of newspapers,
sometimes apparently controlled by narrow ideas
of local interests, or by personal grudges, or
by a growing rage because man they have
tried to drag down will not comfortably
give up and disappear, the prevalent
opinion of this community is often curiously
provincial and ignorant; and the New Yorker
who is compacently waiting to see the coun-
try act upon the ideas hc has accepted is
startled to find the country. with bland in
difference to him, heading steadily in an OPP
posite direction.
Here is the Blaine Belmont business, for
instance. There were personal reasons, per-
fectly known to all familiar with the news
papers of the metropolis, insuring the sym
pathy of majority Of them in any attack
upon Mr.. Blaine. Then the conservatism of
capital and the cOwardice of commerce were
sure to take alarm at anything like vigor in
the conduct of our foreign relations. Skill
fully using this existing tendency, the news
papers largely led opinion here to the belief
that the insult to Mr.. Blaine, however
coarse in itself, was a smart and a damaging
thing, and that, somehow or other, the ex-
Secretary had been almost irretrevably injured.
The blind New-York newspaper and the pro-
yincial New-York reader will presently be
astonished again at finding the country largely
Oh the other side. There was something pitt
full in the dense ignorance of The Erening
Posts dispatch, the other day on the surpris-
ing support Mr.. Belmont was getting from the
newspapers. Let lis see what that support is,
outside of this city.
No man can know the State at all without
realizing that important centres of public opin-
ion, measurably independent Of the metropolis.