South Australian Register (Adelaide, SA : 1839 - 1900), Saturday 5 November 1859, page 2


The Register. ADELAIDE: SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 5, 1859.

NUGGETS AND VOTES.

Positively Mr. Cobden ought to be ashamed of himself. We knew that gentlemen of the Manchester school are apt to take an exceed ingly commercial view of tho relations subsist

ing between Britain and her colonies, but we did not expect to find a man in Mr. Cobden's position usiug Australians as the Spartans used their helots—for the purpose of making vices contemptible. Yet so it is, and Mr. Cobden's best hope for the abandonment of political corruption by gentlemen is that Aus-tralians practise it. The naughty boys of the aristocracy who bribe electors and corrupt con-stituencies are to be induced to give up those questionable practices—not by dint of punish-ment, not by conviction of their iniquity—but because those low Australian fellows have adopted those vices which pertain hereditarily to the titled classes. Seriously and actually this is the argument of that "man of the people" who regarded the offer of a seat in Lord Palmerston's Ministry "peculiarly in-viting, because the probability is, it would have been the first instance in which a man literally springing immediately from among the people, and a man of business, had been offered a seat in the Cabinet." He it is who, by using, endorses the notion that an act is different in its moral cha-racter according as it is performed by an aristocrat or a self-made man. Or if this should be regarded as straining Mr. Cobden's argument beyond its proper implications, it must still be allowed that he announces essentially that a deed which is respectable when done by perhaps a beggarly Englishman becomes vulgar when done by a wealthy Australian. And worse than this even, by fair implication he discriminates between wealth derived from manufacturing in Lan-cashire and wealth derived from sheepfarming in Australia, and he argues as if the accumu-lator of the former was necessarily a gentle-man, and the accumulator of the latter neces-sarily a snob. For drawing this distinction, we repeat, Mr. Cobden ought to be ashamed of himself, as a man of both sense and courage. As a man of sense he ought to have seen that there is no essential difference in point of respectability between growing wool in Australia and converting that wool into cloth in a Yorkshire factory. And as a man of courage he ought to have pointed his moral by the selection of some nearer offender, and not have insulted distant colonies by singling out men of their making. In a word, he had no right to assume, coolly and without a syllable of proof, that the extreme of vulgarity is manifested by wealthy Australians. We will proceed to show when, where, and how Mr. Cobden committed the offence we have alleged against him. In his absence in America he was elected as tho member for Rochdale, and he met his constituents for the first time on the evening of the 17th August. His speech on that occasion was transmitted by electric telegraph to London, and reported in the Times of the next morning to the extent of nearly four columns. Tho first topic to which Mr. Cobden alluded in that speech was the subject of corrupt practices at elections ; and, after a number of statements irrelevant to our present purpose, he referred as follows to the parties whom he seems to regard as pri-vileged to exercise the power of bribery and corruption :— "Formerly the system of corruption and undue in fluence in our constituencies was confined very much to a privileged class in this country. One noble family contested a county against another noble family, and they spent £100,000 a-piece. And all the world knew that it was agreed that they should resort to the same habit ef expenditure ; and it was considered, in fact, a legitimate exercise of their wealth and their power. In the same way, if a contest took place in a borough, it was some leading landed proprietor or some influential family of the neighbourhood who contested with another individual having the same pretensions as himself, and they fought the election of some borough amid fourteen or twenty days of saturnalia, extravagance, and corrup-tion. There, again, it was considered so much a matter of course, and was so ennobled in men's minds by seeing it patronised by the titled and the great, that these things were passed over. We read of them in history, and very little notice was taken of them." And the meeting cheered, but whether to signify approval of the doings of "the titled and the great," or of the tacit concurrence of the untitled many, does not appear. How ever, they cheered, and Mr. Cobden proceeded to describe the degeneracy of modern times, as follows :— "But now, gentlemen, we have another class of aspirants for Parliament altogether. During the last general election, for instance, I have seen a new element in our system of electoral corruption ; we have had a number of gentlemen who have come over from Australia, where, I suppose, they have been successful at the diggings, for they have brought over their nuggets, and administered them in the shape of £50 notes ; they have gone to some little borough and fought their battles and bribed just as their betters did fifty years ago." We should like to have an opportunity of asking Mr. Cobden, as a man of "plain, un-adorned speech," in what sense he can fairly use the word "betters" in this connection. Why are men who inherited fortunes "better" than men who made them ? Why are men who bribed fifty years ago "better" than men who bribed at the last general election ? Why does Mr. Cobden, who knows better, pander to a false and vicious estimate of men and things ? As it would be inconvenient to "pause for a reply" from Mr. Cobden, we proceed at once

to show the use he makes of the fact he has stated in the last extract we have made from his speech. He says :— "Now, I have great hopes when this system is resorted to by parties who have none of the prestige of the no-bility, that very likely it will be treated very differently by the people and by Parliament, and that some plan will be resorted to to put it down. I remember when duelling in this country was so regularly a mode of meeting a certain description of insults that if a man lolding a certain position in society received an affront at the hands of his equal, he was obliged to meet him in deadly combat as a consequence, or he would have been banished from the social life of his equals. Well, I re-member that some linendrapers' assistants took it into their heads to go down one Sunday morning to Worm-wood Scrubs, or some place where the nobility used to carry on that pastime, and they began to fight duels but as such as linendrapers' assistants took to duelling it became very infamous in the eyes of the upper classes. The consequence was that sonw of those gentry were sent to Newgate, and now nothing would be so ridi-culous as to resent an insult by going out and fighting a duel about it. I am very much in hopes that, since this system of bribery and corruption has fallen into the hands of such as I have described, those gentlemen coming home from the Australian diggings, or from their broad acres and herds, and rushing into local mar-kets, and offering by the expenditure of £4,000 or £5,000 to buy the seat of some little dirty borough in the west of England—I have very strong hopes that such a system will not be so fashionable as it has been, and very likely we shall succeed in having those parties pro-secuted criminally—I say criminally. Let them be in-dicted criminally, and let the consequences of their conviction be a few mouths at Newgate, or in the House of Correction, and if an ex-M.P. be sent there, and made to wear the prison dress, and have his hair shaved, I have no doubt in the world it would do very much to put an end to this bribery and corruption." At this, of course, the meeting laughed up-roariously. The idea of a member of Parlia-ment with his head shaved was too ludicrous to be received with gravity. But why make tho first examples of "those parties"—those vulgar Australian magnates—who may plead that they are only imitating the example of their "betters" in scattering a few thousands of pounds for the inhabitants of a "dirty little borough" to pick up ? Why not begin with the older offenders— theexemplars in crime— who have long practised these "fashionable" vices with impunity ? Surely a fair apportion-ment of the penalty would be to leave the new culprits to Mr. Cobden's sarcasms, and to award the brief retirement in Newgate to those criminals whose "prestige of nobility" en-hances the guilt of their offence. But Mr. Cobden would make the Australian offenders serve the double purpose of making the vice contemptible and of bearing its penalty for the warning of the aristocracy. Herein the Lace-demonians were more just than he. They joined their children in ridiculing and despis-ing the drunken slaves, but they did not flog them afterwards for their inebriation. We will suggest a better political use to

which Mr. Cobden might put the colonies and their people. He should refer rather to what Australians do for themselves in Australia, as a whole, than to what individuals corrupted by the bad example of their "betters" do in England. He should show that by the adop-tion of the ballot Australians have practically rendered bribery impossible, and hold up their example to their fellow-countrymen at home for imitation there. Strange to say, though Mr. Cobden speaks of the ballot as the best safeguard against corruption, he ignores Aus-tralia as a country in which the ballot is adopted. Not strange, either, is this omis-sion ; for, as we have already intimated, the Manchester school cherish anything but a friendly feeling towards the colonies. They regard them as burdens upon the mother country, mere fields for thoe exercise of Govern-ment patronage, communities whose custom would be more valuable were they sepa-rated entirely from the parent state. And their views of the political action of the colo-nists are tinged by a prejudice which is derived possibly justly enough, from sources over which the colonies have no control. We cannot suppose Mr. Cobden ignorant of the fact that the ballot is in use in parliamentary elections in the Australian colonies. And yet he quotes America, Switzerland, France, and Spain as countries illustrating the beneficial influence of the ballot over the conduct of elections, while he refers to Australia only so as to bring her people into ridicule. MR. TOLMER'S EXPEDITION.—A gentleman of Adelaide has received a letter from Mr. Tolmer, dated "Warakimbo, October 14. The postmark is "Port Augusta, October 30." We extract the following passage :—"I regret to state that I have met with serious losses since I quitted the settled districts, in eonsequence of the present season being unfavourable for exploration. The whole country in the north is a barren waste ; there is hardly a blade of grass to be found, unil the water also is exceed-ingly scarce, not a drop of rain having fallen for months. Notwithstanding these disastrous reverses and diflicullies, however, I expect to surmount them ull, and to resume my journey shortly." Tim Volunteers.— Major Freeling hns been appointed Captain of tho Volunteer Rille Corps No. 1, m lieu of the lion. Captain 13ugot, who is about to leave tho colony upon a visit to Europe. Echcnsa Gold Diaaixos.— From tho Commissioner of Crown Lands we have received the subjoined extracts from a report, dated November 2, of the officer in charge of the Eehunga Uold Diggings : — 'Since my last communication thcro has been another patch struck by Menirs. Pnrteou* A Cooper (bath old diggers), at a depth or 30 feet. As they only bottorrcd yesterday they caunot say jut what it will yield, but they are natistletlth.it It will pay. I will bo able to give the average quantity next week. 'Messrs. Farrow &. Huberts have worked out their claim ; the total quantity of gold taken from it was ISozs. They have commenced sinking afresh. K, Loveland'ft claim is b ill paving, as aUo those of LllW white, Willis, nnd others. 'Tho diggers have named tho new discovery ? Penny weight Hill.' They anticipate that, should tho deep sinking fall off, good surfacing ground can be got in Iho neighbourhood. There are, however, many complaining of a want of success, aud a few days moro will add considerably to oar number or drive many away. 'The number of licences issued for October was 10-1.' GAWLER PRIZEMUSIC.—The Judges who had undertaken to decide upon the music set to the "Song of Australia" met yesterday, and, after due examination, agreed to the following report :— "The Judges appointed to award the prize for the best musical composition set to the words of the prize song, entitled 'The Song of Australia,' met on Friday, the 4th November—present, Messrs. Dutton, Ewing, Chinner, and Holden. Twenty-three compositions were examined, and the prize was unanimously awarded to the composition bearing the motto 'One of the Quan-tity.' Those bearing the mottoes 'Long Live our Gracious Queen,' 'Garibaldi,' and 'Con Amore' so nearly equalled the prize composition in merit that the Judges had great difficulty in coming to a decision. "Francis S. Dutton. "A. Ewing. "Geo. W. Chinner. "Wm. Holden." Immediately upon receiving this report we telegraphed to the Secretary of the Gawler In-stitute to ascertain the name of the successful competitor, and we find from his reply that the composer who has thus distinguished himself is Mr. Carl Linger. SIGNOR CUTOLO'S CONCERT.—Signor Cutolo announces a grand concert for next Tuesday evening, at White's Room, when he will be assisted by Mrs. Perry-man, Miss Rowe, aad Miss Bryan (the young lady whose first appearance at a former concert given by the Signor was signalized by very distinguished success), as also by Messrs. Daniel, Christen, and Hermann Oelmann. The concert is in some degree complimentary to the Volun-teers of South Australia, his sympathy with whose patriotic movement the Signor has evinced by setting to music an appropriate song written by Mr. H. E. Smith. The words appeared in Friday's Register, and we have heard the music, which is of a stirring military character. The Signor mentioned to us that he had communicated with the commanding officers of most of the Volunteer corps on the subject, including Major Freeling, Captains Younghusband, Finniss, Torrens, Blyth, Bagot, Mayo, Hardy, and E. S. Smith. It is probable, therefore, that the attendance of our gallant artillery and riflemen will be very large. The effect of Mr. Smith's song will be increased by the assistance of several amateurs, who have volunteered their services in the chorus— "Australia's sons, arise ! awake ! Be men, dismiss all craven fears ; For country, home, for altar's sake, Enrol amongst our Volunteers." The programme generally is most brilliant, comprising several beautiful songs and pieces, among the latter of which is a fantasia composed by Signor Cutolo, and never before performed by him in public. Victoeia School, Mobphbtt VAiB.—-The i?,U?win|fib*8 b!en forwa«led by a correspondent:— 'The first annual examination or this school, under the last, the 28th ult.. in the presence of a few parents and friendf. After the singiugf of a hymn and prayer, tho Eev. Mr. Benny examined the pupils in English reading and recitation, spelling, etymological parsing, Scripture history, mental arithmetic and writnir. At the close of the examination, which lasted four hours, Mr. Benny addressed the pupils on the imporUuco of knowledge when made subservient to their- highest Interest*, and expressed tq_ the matter his satisfaction with tho day's proceedingsT Mr. Foggo having replied, priae* were distributed, a hymn sung, pr»y« oSwed, tab UM Kb9*l I diuniiwd.