WHAT THE "OPERATIVES" GAIN BY REVOLUTIONS. {From the Times, March 28.)

New Zealander, Volume 4, Issue 232, 19 August 1848, Page 3

WHAT THE " OPERATIVES " GAIN BY REVOLUTIONS. {From the Times, March 28.)

Let any indusuious woiKing man just ask himself whether he would be at all the better tor any great and sudden change. Nineteen persons out of twenty would be a great dull worse off. Look to France. We will not depute that the French had a ri^ht to depose Louis Philippe if they pleased, or that they had reason on their side ; but it is very clear that they have punished themselves about as much as they have their king. If he is ruined, so are they. Public faith is tampered with. Credit is gone. Trade is at a standstill. Every decent-looking citizen is stopped out" side his own town and searched to discover whether he has more than £20 about him— if he has, the surplus it taken from him, and applied to arming the National Guards, paying vagabonds who won't work, and other such follies. Mills are every where Btopped, and the poor workpeople are wandering about in thousands. No debts can be collected. Bank notes are immensely depreciated. The depositors in savings' banks are allowed to draw out £& in silver, but all above that sum, whatever it is, they are paid in comparatively worthless paper. Employment must be at a standstill when produce of all kinds are good for nothing. The owners of furniture, or plate, or jewels, or silks, are only anxious to exchange these things for money. The direct taxes, which aie much more vi iversally felt than in this country, are raised to half as much again an they were. Waste, confiscation by threats, insecurity, and a well-founded apprehension of evils to come, constitute the piesent state of France, and come home to the door ot every artizan, farmer, and peasant. But again. Let every industrious working-man of this country make his own calculation of the consequences, and consider whether lie would not be the worse for any great and sudden change. If trade were panickstruck, or twenty thousand families in the fashionable or the "respectable" circles were deprived of their incomes, what class of persons would gam by the change ? Would there be more demand for coal, if these establishments were reduced ? Would there be more demand for builders, for carpenters, foi brick - makers, for painters and glaziers, for cabinetmakers and upholsteiers, for whitesmiths, ov, indeed, for any other class of workmen connected with the comforts and luxuries of life, if all these houses were chut up ? 11 two thousand carnages and horses were put down, at least ten thousand men and their families would lose their livelihood by that single change. The inequalities of British society aie, we think, too great, and it should bo the ' tendency' of legislation to reduce them ; hut tl at is a different thing from k sudden change. We arc now, happily, in a veiy diffjrent state fiom what our forefathers were at the signing cf the Magna Ciiartn. But it would have been imj o sible to do the work of those seven hundred years in one. Magna Charta itself was scarcely any change at all ; but only an assertion of ex'stmg rights, viz., the lights of tb.3 batons and of the clergy — for the people had net m cl to do jn. the matter, A« attempt ja those i », *, to

jump at once to our present degree of " liberty, equality, and Iraternity," would only have led to universal confusion and distress. Every young man in this metropolis, if he will only attend to his business, whatever it is, and keep out ot scrapes, 13 a rising man, and has all the prizes and honours of the nation before him, if not for himself or his children, at least for his childien's children. Theie is no reaion to complain when this is the case. We have no exclusions of race. Take any dozen me.i in good circumstances, either at the east or west end of London ; take them in a club at Pall Mall, or in the E.\clnnge, and inquite into their origin. One is an Irishman, another a Scotchman, and another is a Welohman. Perhaps half of them can show a Celt in his pedigree. The same number can produce an an--cestor driven to this country by a revocition of the edict of Nantes, or a foreigner of tt 11 more lecent date. So much for race. As for condition, the great grandfather of one wus a labouier ; of anolhcr ii gentleman's butlpr, of another a weaver, of another a journeyman blacksmith, of another a hairdresser, and so foith. So far fiom the trade and commerce of London being at all a monopoly, it is notorious that neatly all the tradesmen of London, cr their immediate ancestors, came from the country. There are persons now at the very head of their trade 01 piofession, who foity years agoweie country lads, knowing no more of the metropolis than what they learned fiom llie story of Wkltiington and his cat. In the manufacturing dLtrict3 these examples of successful industry are still more numerous. Manchester, for example, is made out of nothing. The whole city is raised from the t'un^lii'l, and set among princes. • Now this slats ot things suits the British taste very iiiuch better than any scheme for making and keeping all men equal. The fact is, we don'c like equality. Sasoni are a spreading, a stirring, an ambitious, and a conquering lace. We p r efer hope to enjoynunt, and would lather l>ok forward to be something better than to be flirt ays the same. Who wishes to think that his chihh en and his children's children, and so forth, will be always as pinched, as slaved, and as dirty as himself? Tnere is a sect of Christians which holds that the emnbyment of thi« nrorlil will survive, in a certain celestial form, in the next. The sect flags because no one Wtbnes to be making pots and pans, even ia the eeriest and happiest way, to all eternity. Englishmen of any thought have just the same feeling alout their posterity. They hope to lise in their offspring. They also know that they will do so, if they are 6teady and industiiou3, and train up their children as they ought to do. Every working man with two ideas in his head, knows veiy well that it is his own fault if he does not thrive, live m a comfortable house, rented at more than £] 0 per year, ha\e a little money safely invested, and before many yeais find himself and h»s family gate at leaat from the woikhousc. An Englishman who is good for anything at all, will 1 gain nothing by what is culled " citizenship," or any ' such humbug. We have not the least objection to our i liveiy neighbours being citizens if they like it ; but, s>o far, it u evident that citizen and soldier, citizen and j debtor, citizen and defaulter, citizen and idle man, citizen and state pauper, mean the same thing. We most sincerely hope and trust, that they will ultimately get out of tuc dreadful mess in which they most certainly are at the present moment. But it is clearly our business to wait till they are out ot it before we make the smallest approach to follow their example, or to improve our institutions upon their model. The Republic is not yet in working gear. At present it only s'.oih good material. We shall shortly see Fiance either better or woi\;e, and it will then be time to lake our own measures accordingly.

A Mad Rfpujlican.— lt is now generally known thai the decisive shot before the Affaires Etrangeres, which has been represented as a chance one, and which changed the fate of the em\ ire, was fired by Lagrange, the condemned conspirator of 1832, who, by his own confession, finding that affaWs we c likely to take a favourable turn for royalty after all, determined to risk his last step in order to arouse the angrj paE.ions of the people. In this he but too well succeeded, and the icsult we have seen. The Provisional Government, although in dread of the well-known incendiary principles of Lagrange, felt compelled to nominate him to some post of eminence, and accordingly we beheld his name figure away most majestically aa Governor of the Motel de "Ville tor two days ! At the end of that time he was replaced by another, and nothing further has since besn heard of Lagran°e, who. as creator and father of the revolution of 1848, hac!,'of course, attracted considerable attention at first, It appears that oa the Monday follownu the flight of Louis Philippe, a grand council was held of all the revolutionary leaders assembled to dictate terms it 7iuis clos to the Provisional Government. The wise and calm demeanour of Lamartine seems to have irritated, in no small degree, the boiling, passionate nature of Lagrange, whose excitement was so fierce and terrible that several members of ihe Assembly prepared to withdraw in alarm. Lamartine alone blenched not, and the sangfioid and self-possession displayed in his replies only served to increase the savage anger of his opponent all the more. At length, exasperated beyond control, the infuriated republican, drawing a pistol from his pocket, rushed towards Lamarline, and exc'aiminjj, "Thou art no true patriot!" pointed the weapon at the head of the Minister. " What hinders me from taking thy life now, at once, upon the instant?" shrieked he, with redoubled fury, as the calm glance of Lamartine met bis eye. " Your own conscience," coolly replied the Minister, " and the utter us>eles6ness of such an outrage, for should I f«ill there will still remain my colleagues, who all, to a man, have resolved to die rather than submit to violence, or to return to the senseless anarchy of '93 !" The words had the effect of calming for an instant the fuiy of Ligrange. He dropped the weapon which he held, and turning pale as death, while his eye quailed before the steady gaze of Laoiartine, he muttered between his teeth, " Thou art not a true lepublican, nor yet a true patriot, but I verily believe thou art an honest man !" and then sank back again upon his seat at the council board, trembling in every limb, and apparently ex haustcd with the eflbrt of passion to which he had given way. It wa3 then that his neighbour, La Caussidiere, managed to seize the which he hai placed beside liim, and by this piesence of mind saved the assembly fr.m a dr-adful catastrophe, for in_ the space of a ftw m >ments Lagrange arose, and with^tue must frightful yells and bowlings, began to rend the cloucs, from Ms bacV, ai d to tear the flash frjm his bosom, until the blood spurted forth, all the while uttering the most fearful imprecationß and blasphemies. la an instant the whole assembly was in an uproar ; thettr.or of the ccene was greater than words cun de cribe. It was evident that the fierce excitement ol the lt.st few days hud turned the biains of Lagrange, and produced a fit of raging madness. lie was seem ed with difficulty, and born to maison de sarje, at Mo it martre, where he now remains, I believe, still a raving tnauiac.— Paris Correspondent of the Alias.

Among other rhimerical project 3 for releasing money to relieve the existing press ure, we; fii d the following iv a letter from the Tones' correspondent of WcUnes?

day :—": — " A placard was posted in different parts of the city yesterday containing a plan for making ' France rich in eight days.' It is calculated that 6,000,' 00 or 7,000,000 persons in France possess articles of plate of a value aveiaging 30 )f. each person. The State is to borrow this, giving the owned n'n!e/s (debenture j) to the amount of the price of the metal, with an allowance for the workmauship,at the quotation of the day. Coin this mass of bullion, and France troaid immediately be the ridie&t country 3a the world. ' Promptitude and energy' arc advised in the execution of this measure. It is hinted that articles silvercfi by the electric process are quite as ornamental as plate."— Edinburgh Adicrluer. flic hostile feeling of the French people towards this country is notorious, and appears to have been kept down, like their otlier turbulent propensities, only by the strong hand of authority. When these restraints were removed, their national antipathy instantly manifested itself by driving their obnoxious nvals in thousands out of the country. Not only railway labouiers, but artisans, and manufacturers, as at Havre and Rouen, the bervants of families, are ordcied to be expelled, without jeceiving their wages, or their furniture or tho tnfl.ng sums they have dspo-ited in the Savings' Hanks. Here is another precious specimen of tlo liberty end equality proclaimed as the motto and glory of the new Republic I Tins hatred and injustice to foreign wotkmen. which we should hive thought only the lowest canaille would have cheiished, the Government itself has at last taken up, and embodied into a d cree, issued on Sunday last, and beming the signature of the Perfect of Police, M. Caussnuce. This functional y, to gratify the Parisian mob, and in obedience to their sovereign command, has proclaimed that ".foreign workmen cannot participate in the labour and wages which the Provisionel Government has assimled to native workmen ;" ha therefoie informs them that if they shall determine to iiitnain in or come to Pans, after this warning, " they will be liable to be turned out forcibly from the French territory," and that arrangements are making " fcr expelling fiom F.anre all who may become burdensome to the commune, or causs inquietude to the |„eople." This is a cruel and an impolitic step ; but the mob wills it, and tlie high< est functionaiieb must comply. There can be as yet no influx of foreign workmen into Fiance, beyond those employed piior to the Revolution of the 24ih ult., and therefore this assumption can only be a pretext for driving out every foreigner who may have transferred his opera'ivo skill and capital lo the French capital.] M. Guizot has been admitted as an honoraiy member of the Athenreum Club, for two months; a step that has excited some disappiohation in the Club. We understand that the Committee does not enjoy a very hearty sympathy from the gencial body of members; who migat not have been so eager in paying court to the great litterateur. His personal equivocation respecting the time at which " the two marriages " in the Royal family of Spain were lo take place, is not quite forgotten. — Spectator.

Parallel passages in history— in ltfau, no sooner had the Dey of Algiers arrived in France as a prisoner of Charles X, than the Kiujj was dethroned and exiled— and in 1848, t o sooner had the Emi.- Abd-el-Knder reached the shoiea of France, as the prisoner of Louis Philippe, than the la ter was dethroned and evi'eJ. The Dey, at the fall of Charles X, eiclaimed — " God is just : He has avenged me I"