From the Spectator, 18th Dec. emigrants, the close connection between this country, because the crews to man the homeward country and Australia, which is becoming so bound ships are off to the diggings, points with manifestly precious, may be not only maintained peremptory force to the necessity for filling that but strengthened; while the continued pressure field as rapidly as possible; and we know that the of a healthy emigration on the employment-market emigration already sent out will have helped in will help to sustain the value of wages, and so to that process. Any blunder of statesmanship to keep up the condition of the most numerous place us in hostility with our natural ally and best classes. In other words, by a scientific distribu- foreign customer would at once be manifest in all tion of labor to the most productive employments its blasting consequences to every voter in the in the world, the largest and most valuable pro- manufacturing and mining districts. Under duce will be realized, and the material condition, clearer and more general surveillance than ever, not to say the moral condition, of great communi- with duties well defined, but having to handle ties, proportionately guaranteed. But a more affairs on a scale of unprecedented magnitude, skilful and systematic conduct of emigration may acting statesmen will find evasions and makeshifts be absolutely needed to keep the machine working very sorry substitutes for honesty and efficiency. in that part of its gear. Commerce will enforce shorter accounts than usual Another cause operating to a considerable with Downing Street and Whitehall, and the offiextent in enlarging the trade of England is proba-cial accountants will experience the need for unbly to be found in the disturbed state of the Con- usual efficiency in their vocation. tinent; hence, most likely, the unusual degree of the pressure upon our cotton-market of the orders from Russia and Germany. It must be remembered that the disturbance is not alone that of war, but is that of intestine discord and distrust, the PECULIAR CHARACTERISTIC OF THE PREStrue paralyzers of internal production, as political and social unanimity are its best promoters. Hence, in all probability, that uncertainty which overhangs the future on the continent of Europe would have few alarms for this country, if our statesmen could so govern as to preserve unanimity at home, and a good feeling towards this country amongst the consuming classes abroad. Should the apprehensions of war be realized, the state would be bound to provide protection for our commerce; but with a sufficient guard for its path by sea, no Berlin decrees could exclude it from the general market. In this respect, the continent of Europe offers a striking distinction from the probabilities westward, in case of any misunderstanding with England; the government at Washington is less the ruler than the servant of its own people; hence the Union at large takes a much more active and positive part in the state affairs, and it is probable that an official declaration of war would be backed by a popular resolution of "non-intercourse" with England on the part of the best cus tomer for our trade. ENT PROSPERITY. Ir the briskness of speculation, and the extent of it, send the mind back to 1825 and 1845-17, the comparison is immediately rebuked by the striking distinctions observable in the present movements of commerce. Such resemblance as there is lies altogether in the scope of the action, and in a certain imaginative turn to the future prospects; and in both these respects the present day far exceeds either of those memorable periods. But when we look into the nature of the movements, the resemblance vanishes. In 1825, the commercial mind was dazzled by a new method of working capital, according to the manner of joint-stock companies; and that same commercial mind, which is extremely sensitive and flies off at a tangent on the touch of a straw, as cannon-balls are said to do, immediately grew mad with the desire to work up capital in jointstock companies. The companies were established in every direction, with paid staff and servants. The particular object to be attained, the subject of the work, was a very secondary consideration. The grand thing was to get the machinery, and it was almost a matter of ulterior thought what should be done with it. It inevitably followed that many of the enterprises, which were mere pretexts for the formation of a company, were impracticable or nugatory in themselves, and that the companies proved to be sheer abortions. This, however, was not discovered, in many cases, until after the company had been at work; and then it fell, dragging with it several of its connexions, in many cases many of its own kind. Nothing could be left behind save the ruin which was created. On the first view of the smiling prospect which we have surveyed, it would seem to hold out to acting statesmen the hope of an easy time; but, on a closer consideration, that calculation would not appear to be quite so correct. The prosperity which will incline to make the different classes of society more contented," and therefore "tranquil," must also tend to make them more independent; hence the leading influences in the country will acquire additional activity and weight, and the people will not only expect public services to be well performed, but will feel conscious both of the power and of the necessity for exacting a sufficient performance. Better supplied The railway mania, which set in so strongly in with resources, each class will be abler to express 1845, and attained its final crash in 1847, was not and to enforce its own desires. With a larger quite so baseless as the joint-stock mockery, but stake in action, each class will feel the necessity partook of it in the principal characteristic; of good governance more palpably. And, quite independently of the more general enlightenment it so happens that the main causes which will operate to enhance or abate the prosperity are obvious to the present view beyond all precedent in the history either of society, of politics, or of commerce. The hitch which at this moment occurs in the advent of the Australian gold to this which lay in considering the machinery before the * on what proved to be a delusive pretext, became trade. A third difficulty arises from the excessive in themselves delusions. Of the capital collected and continued wet weather, which creates gloomy to construct them, part went into the pockets of apprehensions for the crop of next year. In clay engineers, secretaries, directors, and other ser- lands farmers have been unable to get in their vants; much of it to taverns and places less seed-wheat, and in lighter lands the seed that has proper to be inspected; and much of it nobody been sown has been damaged or washed away. knew whither. The railroads remained; and But we notice that the imports of corn in the some of them have been converted to better pur- English and Irish markets are already commencpose at second hand. Some of them were indeed ing; and the American markets appear to be supbut premature in their establishment, and the plied in a more than usual degree. Although, traffic has grown up to them. Still, at the par- therefore, in these particular instances, particular ticular day, much of that speculation was with- traders may be put out of their caiculations-may out a substantial basis; and in regard to such in the first case expect high prices, and in the projects it may be said, that after the money was second case be somewhat frustrated by that which paid nothing remained in hand but worthless benefits the public-the broad facts still remain, scrip. that raw material is obtained, that labor has a The striking fervor of industrial activity and of good market, and that a stirring trade will secure speculation observable in all parts of the country those provisions which legitimate speculations for some months since we last noticed the subject, have been preparing for this country in the great is remarkable for dealing entirely with realities; corn-fields of the world. One main cause of the indeed, it may be said, that never at any period practical difficulty in the coal and iron trades is within the experience of the present generation the draught of labor to Australia. The coalhas commerce been more matter-of-fact than it is masters of the North begin to feel the want of at this moment. That remark appears to us to those men, who find a better market for their labor apply not less to the speculations laid down for in the diggings of Mount Alexander or Ophir, and future execution than it does to the manufacture the men who remain find that they are few in of cottons, nails, or stockings. The unprecedented proportion to the work which needs them. But briskness of trade in all the great districts-in the cotton district, the nail district, the hosiery district, the iron district, the coal district, and even the linen district of Ireland-is working for once as immediately and really as the materials are tangible. The Chinese are in want of shirting, and Manchester is engaged in supplying actual wants felt by that fantastically practical race, with whom our breakfast-table trade is about to be so largely extended. Thus, again, the Americans are in want of Birmingham ware; as our own government is in want of arms and accoutrements for its military extensions. The great body of our countrymen are, from the operations of free trade, better off than they have been in any previous year, and they are in want of more cloth and cotton clothing, and for months past the factories of the country have been engaged in supplying those actual wants. Another test of the unspeculative character of the work which now proceeds at such a pace is the general lowness of stocks. this claim also involves a real gain; labor is more valuable, and the higher wages paid by the masters will be a proportionately better investment. The grand distinction, therefore, between the activity of the present day, incalculably as it exceeds that of all former periods, lies in the tangible matter-of-fact nature of the business upon which it is bestowed. The speculation of our own day does not busy itself with joint-stocks to do nothing in particular, or with railways to go nowhere in particular, but is working, heart and soul, upon food, raiment, and gold; all of which are actually produced, and only demand to be exchanged. And expanding speculations, such as the new railway movements, which are reviving, partake of this better characteristic. They are wanted for business. The South Staffordshire Railway, for example, which is just opened to Derbyshire, is virtually an addition to the coal in the district where it is wanted, since facility is the There have been some derangements of calcula- equivalent of quantity, and that railway is as tion. The cotton-dealers, for example, have been tangible in its necessity as the coal which is in some anxiety with the prospect of a short sup- carries. In like manner, the enormous vessels ply during the ensuing season, and they were pay- that are now built for the transit to Australia and ing liberally to secure the remains of stock; when America, and which we believe will be excelled now, very suddenly, it appears that the supply of by ships already in contemplation-the great comcotton from the United States exceeds any previous panies which are established to conduct the busisupply. It is not only the receipts at Liverpool ness of the shipping-do not precede, but rather that are in excess-600,000 bales have been wait upon, the business that they have to serve. received in lieu of 400,000 by the same time last The necessity for the extension of the "Peninsular year-but in America itself the proportion received and Oriental Steam Navigation Company," or of in the chief ports from the growing districts ex- the "Eastern Steam Navigation Company," is as ceeds the average of the last three years in the tangible as the goods or the people which their proportion of more than 7 to 6. This is a beneficial ships will carry. They will be engaged in conabundance, but its suddenness has somewhat veying raiment or food, or that precious metal deranged calculation, and has "agitated" the market. Again, the coal-trades are somewhat put out by the demand for higher wages amongst the laboring colliers, which is met by the resistance of the masters, brings the trade to a stand, and causes corresponding impediments in the iron * Spectator, September 25, 1852. which is the exchangeable standard of wealth throughout the world; or in conveying labor which is transferred to the place where it is most valued, because most productive. The peculiarity of the present day lies entirely in the great proportion of well-assorted production as compared to the num ber of hands laboring upon it, or to the number of consumers. CUBA, IN A RELIGIOUS ASPECT. It is to the incidental remark in italics we desire to call attention. Ought at any time, or under any circumstances, the Protestants of this country, [THIS article is copied from the second number of a new and very able religious paper, called The Register,ought, least of all, the Anglican Churchmen, published in Philadelphia, by members of the Protestant those whose historical faith in the old world was Episcopal Church. The objection herein made to the tried in that "great agony," when the king of Annexation of Cuba ought to be decisive. Even if Spain the Indies sent his Armada to destroy the Church as well as the State of England-nay, ought the were to consent, we should shudder at the everlasting enlightened and liberal Roman Catholics of Amerreligious war which we should kindle within our borders.ica, ever desire to see infused into our blood and To add such a war to that about Slavery would be most dangerous. What but destruction would follow ?] our system, and made part of us, Roman Catholicism, as it exists, always has, and we fear, always will, in Spain and the Indies? To this Now that the chances of either the honest or there can be but one answer. It is alien to every dishonest acquisition of Cuba seem by common American sentiment, whether in the heart of consent to have materially diminished-now that Protestant or intelligent Roman Catholic. It is the conservatives of all parties have, for the time repugnant to the liberal and enlightened mind at least, ranged themselves on the platform of non- everywhere. There lies before us, as these words annexation by any means, we may, as serious and are written, what, in bitterness of spirit, an eloconsiderate men, think of it calmly and soberly, quent Roman Catholic forty years ago said of that either as a danger past or a danger remotely post- phase of his religion, which the effete bigotry of the poned. As a danger past, it is full of admonitory restored Bourbons sought to reestablish in France interest. There is an irrepressible shudder at the and Europe, every word of which is applicable to thought of how near we were driven to the edge of Hispano-Roman Catholicism, as it exists in Cuba. the precipice, and how loud and discordant were "Though it be," said the poet Moore, "the the screams and yells that threatened to scare the religion of my fathers, I must say that much of horses and perplex the drivers. Had so wild a this vile spirit (of bigotry) is to be traced to that freebooter as Lopez had but a moment's real suc-wretched faith which is again polluting Europe cess-had any other cry been wafted to our coun- with Jesuitism and Inquisitions, and which of try than that which came from the compressed all the impostures which ever stultified mankind threat of the strangled adventurer, telling at the same moment of his landing and his ignominious death, there is no saying how soon we might have been involved in a most unrighteous and aggressive war, from which every instinct of Christian humanity would have revolted. This danger has passed. "Fillibusterism" is not merely at a disCount, but it is a purely valueless article in the market. It is no longer tolerated at the political "Board." How is it in the future? We hope and believe the danger is remotely postponed. In an article on the subject, in the Charleston Mercury, written with great ability, and having for its object the dissuasion of the South from all countenance to the acquisition of Cuba at any time, the following sentences attracted our attention: But, aside from all the difficulties and dangers that surround the acquisition of Cuba, whether by a war between governments or by the covert poison of a dangerous and ever-disturbing neighborhood; and even supposing all these objections obviated, and the acquisition allowed to be made without war and without cost, there are reasons against the measure strong enough to make the southern people pause in the pursuit. We do not now allude to the monarchical habits of the people, which would render a standing army for the preservation of order indispensable; nor to the difference of race, which would make it the hardest of all things to introduce our political institutions there; nor to the fact, that there has always been an established religion in the Island, leagued with the government, claiming universal obedience, and supported by a tithe of the produce of all lands; nor to the equally imposing fact that with its present commerce, and with the habits of smuggling that have grown up everywhere, Cuba must be filled with a custom-house police as well as a standing army, and thus become the mere creature of the Federal Government, and its natural ally in every aggression upon the south; we pass over all these weighty considerations, and find in the sole condition of slavery in Cuba a powerful argument against its annexation. is the most mischievous." And such in our day, in this respect, is that form of degraded superstition, with the inoculation of which we are threatened, when Cuba is to be part of us. It is not the mere aggregate of its populationall without exception of this form of superstition, but it is its ecclesiastical institutions and habits and rights of property, and tenure of one sort or another, that, in this view of the case, should make us pause. All would have to be protected, and constitutional immunities would have to extend over them also. Cuba tithes, or the domain of an Havana Archbishop, or the mortmain possession of a West India monastery, would be as sacred as the Dartmouth College property. The incorporation of such intensely foreign institutions in this Protestant community (for such it unquestionably is), would be attended with tenfold the embarrassments which the Gallican habits and institutions of Canada have given to Great Britain. The Frenchman of that region has never yet been thoroughly welded into English society, and the Frenchman is, the world all over, far more manageable and malleable than the Spaniard. If we had no other reasons for shrinking from contact with Cuba, we should find one more sufficient in this view of the matter, which we, as religious journalists, have a right to present. But perhaps the extreme Protestant propagandist may reply, that the barrier of an exclusive foreign government once broken down, there will be a hope of planting reformed principles on a soil where they have never existed before-that Cuba may be converted. We are free to say we have no such hopes in our day or generation. There would be a thousand times more difficulty in establishing a place of Protestant worship in Havana, under any government, than there is now in Rome itself. To this moment Mexico has never tolerated one, and the legislature of the State of Cuba would be too much afraid of its constituencies to venture to permit it. The work of converting the Heathen is slow, but far slower would We repeat, that our hope is that the danger of this crisis is remote-more so than it seemed one year ago. But it may present itself again sooner than we expect, and then the considerations we have hinted at may be worth recalling. From the Spectator, 18th Dec. the kind which justice might have sanctioned. It is an extinction of the independence of the Belgian press; and is so far an extinction of the independence of Belgium. Are we to suppose that a country which can surrender its independence in so important a part of its public machinery as the press, will be prepared to maintain its independence in other respects? Or are we to suppose, that if Belgium is prepared to surrender piecemeal, France, already looking beyond Belgium to the Rhine, will not prepare to invite Belgium to be Flanders once again, a province of the empire? If Belgium had consultIt would be a great mistake to presume that the ed the just claims of the French government, but operations of the French emperor upon Belgium had at the same time called upon her allies to asterminate with the renewal of the commercial sist her in maintaining her practical independence, treaty. Louis Napoleon is eminently a progressive there is some reason to suppose that her claim man, and it would be the wildest calculation to might have been recognized. English sympathies pronounce that he would stop at any particular cannot be altogether extinguished. But there is point. On the other hand, the manner in which one interest which appears to have turned the the concession has been extorted from the Belgian scale adversely to independence, and that is the Parliament offers peculiar temptations to pushing manufacturing and trading interest of Belgium— the French pretensions yet further. The exact what we may call the Manchester section of Belgian course taken by the executive government has been society. That section has been more interested to concealed; but it is not concealed that the govern- get over a present obstruction in commerce than ment at Brussels has acted under coercion from to support a substantive national existence. The the government in Paris, with the countenance of future of the country has been so far sacrificed to the other foreign powers. It is equally notorious the hour. Once more the Paris Moniteur announces that the priest party in Belgium is endeavoring the commercial alliance of France and Belgium. to carry out in that country exactly the same That the government in Paris is satisfied, goes far process that the priest party has effected in France to prove how great the concession must really have -that it is endeavoring to promote the restoration of its old spiritual power over the people by subserving the temporal purposes of Napoleon III. The priest party of Belgium is, even more definitely than it is in France, the conservative or reactionary party. It was in the minority, but it was able to bring three great influences to bear in furtherance of its own political enterprise. It could urge upon the government of Belgium the general desire of the European governments not to disturb quiet, or order," and therefore not to provoke the danger ous potentate in Paris. It could enforce upon the consciences of its own more immediate retainers in Belgium the general promotion of Catholicity. It could press upon the trading classes of Belgium the inconvenience arising from resistance to the French government, which had already cut off the coal-trade, by refusing to continue the commercial alliance of 1845. By these several influences, the priest party of Belgium, although in the minority, has conquered. The object insisted upon by Napoleon III., the passing of a stringent press-law, has been attained. That law has been passed at the instance of the executive government, but by the concurrence of the majority in the Chamber, including, of course, a section of the liberals. 66 been; and we cannot refuse to anticipate, that with so yielding a neighbor to one so grasping, the alliance may at no distant day be drawn yet closer. THE LOBOS QUESTION.-It is greatly to the honor of the United States Government that it has so gracefully ceded the point at issue, and has so readily and fully acknowledged the just claims of Peru. It has done the right thing in a proper and agreeable manner. If the undue claims made by Mr. Webster, too much in to American statesmen, tended to lower them in our accordance with the characteristics usually ascribed opinion, the renunciation of those claims by Mr. Fillmore and his cabinet has elevated them to a higher position than they formerly occupied. . . . It dissipates the charges continually made against American statesmen, by persons envious of the rising prosperity and greatness of the States, that their statesmen are utterly unscrupulous when the supposed aggrandizement of their country is in question. They have, on the contrary, shown themselves on this occasion scrupulous, forbearing, just; and we have no doubt that they will display the same qualities on other great questions. We hold it to be thoroughly and unanswerably proved and established, that honesty is the best and only policy for nations as for individuals; that it is only requisite to have the free and full and unperverted use of the senses for all men to adopt this Placed as Belgium is, a smaller close to a greater conclusion; and as Americans, more than any other state, with a common language, a very ordinary people, have the full, free, and unbiassed use of their degree of sense would suggest some discretion in senses, we believe that they-statesmen and all-are the criticism on French affairs in Belgian news- more likely to adopt and act up to this conclusion papers. It is quite true that those journals might than most other people. Because the Americans are exercise a species of internal interference in France free, we expect they will be honest-will form correct uncommon to foreign journals; and it is equally conclusions from the course of nature; and because true that the vindictive resentment of the autocrat the course of nature inculcates and enforces all the of France might make itself felt in a manner highly virtues, we anticipate that American statesmen will inconvenient to the Belgians and their government. be as superior to the statesmen of Europe as the For this reason, a law to regulate the press might to the French or the Austrians. Their conduct on Americans, taking them man for man, are superior have been supported by very pertinent argument; the Lobos question, though wrong in the first inbut a law which goes a great way actually to put stance, is right in the end; while the graceful acdown anything like criticism-which so far assim-knowledgment of their error is an example of retracilates Belgium to France itself, where the press is tion such as is scarcely to be found amongst the virtually abolished-is more than a concession of statesmen of Europe.-Economist, 11 Dec. LITTELL'S LIVING AGE.-No. 456.-12 FEBRUARY, 1853. From Tait's Magazine. tional arrangements, or rather with the present A WOMAN'S RIGHTS CONVENTION. deficiency of methods for the direction of a woman's intellectual energy, it is not so manifestly We must use the same precaution, inviting profitable to the community to encourage her public attention to the subject we proceed to an- growth of mind as the academical and professional nounce, which the great Weimar arbiter of the-education of a man. She is not to be an active atrical proprieties thought necessary, introducing citizen, a trader, or an artisan; but, as we have a dramatic representation which had in it some-intimated, it is an obsolete, a pagan notion to use thing strange and odd, nearly connected with a no other measure of the care which society owes train of ludicrous associations. "Man lache nicht" to its members than their proportionate capability was the decree by which he secured the composed regard of a critical audience. We may likewise enter a preliminary protest against any levity in the consideration of our matter, and request every reader to respect the Syracuse Woman's Rights Convention, and the entire "movement" of female emancipation, as an affair that is worth a little sober reflection. of remunerative public usefulness. We learn, in modern times, that the State exists for the good of each; and, except where slavery is at the base, no class may be deprived or hindered of their most full development of humanity; because the culture, for want of which they are inferior, is bestowed upon others in a way supposed more advantageous to the public economy. It is not, Those of us who are accustomed to watch the however, in the school or domestic teaching of proceedings of our American cousins, must have young girls there is a deficiency complained of, been already aware, two or three years ago, of the but in the active occupations of life, in the facili bold attitude of actual prominence that has been ties and inducements to the enterprise of female assumed by the advocates of a practical equality industry, in that adaptation of circumstances to of the sexes. It is the national habit, as it is form in a woman her vigor of thought and will, always the tendency of a purely democratic com- which only we can dignify with the comprehenmunity, never to pause in the speculative discus-sive term of education. What can she do in the sion of any new principle, but to plan the scheme world, what even can she do in her own home, that of its application, and urge it immediately. With will stimulate her with the prospect of an adethem, it takes the form of an executive committee quate acknowledgment to the perfect mastery and as soon as it may have won the assent of a suffi- exercise of superior mental powers? We must cient number of persons; and the constituent body confess, these advocates of "woman's rights" have, of its sympathizers are periodically invited to a upon this view, a case for inquiry, and an evil to congress or convention, to sustain the sectarian be redressed. A young man is able, years before interest, and to sanction the direct endeavors to the legal recognition of his manhood, to begin the accomplish its object. This straightforward pro- effort, in some one out of a hundred ways of cess from the idea to the practical effort, the con- activity that may bring him to the objects of his sequential logic of active mind, has acquired for chief worldly ambition; he is able to work for an the English of Britain, as well as for the English actual personal advantage. Should he lose the of the United States, great advantage in the attain- track of his pursuit, or wish to change it, there ment of their intended results, with a yet more are many others in which, if he happen to get an valuable effect in training the national character, introduction, he may be allowed to seek a better not only to intelligence, but to vigorous exertion, success; there is a choice for his inclination, and promptly complying with a prevailing conviction. room for his special faculty. For a woman who It is only when, as it may be in this case, the par- is above the need of menial household drudgery, tisans of a specious theory, so eagerly hasting to there is, except she possesses rare artistic talent, procure its realization as to forget the conditions or unless she be engaged in retail trade, when it is of its acceptance, parade some proposals which seldom she can have any capital to secure more seem to vulgar sense impossible and absurd, that than the position of an assistant, one single and we are obliged to wish they had been content to precarious resource-that of teaching children. It devote a few more years to mature their notion by is a most honorable office, worthy of the noblest tranquil reflection before casting its undeveloped offerings of mind and heart. But it is one that, crudity, without due form and limitation, to the ridicule of a world that is too careless to discriminate between the distorted parody and the abused truth. for its efficient performance in a professional way, requires more than others a peculiar talent and disposition. It is also one in which the multitude of competitors is enormous, compared with the The true principle of this movement, which has demand for their services; as an instance of which, an important place in the esteem of many think- let us mention a fact within our own experience. ing persons, is the assertion that the feminine An advertisement having been published in a nature, by its intellectual and moral capacity, is en- provincial journal, offering a very ordinary situatitled to as careful and complete an education as that tion of resident governess, with a salary of £20 of man. This claim, we think, is not, thus stated, a year, it was replied to by no fewer than eightylikely to be denied by any except those prejudiced five applicants; whose pile of letters we saw, sugby the materialist heathen notion of sacrificing gesting very sad conjectures of the distress and individual culture to the utility of the common- disappointment of so many young creatures, some wealth. It is probable that, with existing conven-homeless ones, whose fair hands had traced the 19 |