Liberalism at Large

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Alexander Zevin. Liberalism at Large

Liberalism at Large. The World accordingto the Economist

Contents

Introduction

1. Free Trade Empire. From Hawick to Calcutta

2. Walter Bagehot’s Dashed Doubts

3. Edward Johnstone and theAristocracy of Finance

4. Landslide Liberalism. Social Reform and War

5. Own Gold. Layton and the League

6. Extreme Centre

7. Liberal Cold Warriors

8. Globalization and Its Contents

Conclusion. Liberalism’s Progress

Acknowledgments

Notes

Index

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Alexander Zevin

I PAX BRITANNICA

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When an uprising did occur that summer it was not the work of the starving masses, as officials had feared, but of a small band of intellectuals in Tipperary calling themselves Young Ireland, easily subdued by local constables. They were ‘the laughing stock of the world’, jeered the Economist. Still, the precautions taken by government – suspending habeas corpus, dispatching an extra 15,000 troops and ordering the fleet to patrol the coast – were sensible.81 The Economist urged their extension for twelve months and that martial law be declared. Trials by jury should be cancelled: military tribunals alone could be relied on to punish rebels. ‘It is liberty, not despotism, which acts as an irritant to the Irish constitution. It simply, as doctors say, does not agree with it. The oriental element – mental prostration before power – is paramount.’ ‘Powerful, resolute, but just repression’ would render the Irishman ‘not only submissive, but content’. It continued:

These suggestions will sound strange in English and in liberal ears. But it is time the truth should be spoken boldly out that the ideal of equal laws for England and Ireland is a delusion, a mockery and a mischief … not till Ireland has been trained and inured to respect and obey the law by years of rigid and severe enforcement, will she have learnt those lessons of justice, honesty, truth, and subordination, which can alone entitle her, by sharing English virtues, to share English liberties and English institutions.82

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