the Diffusion Society, have so often and so urgently given them, they will become capitalists,' and 'take themselves out of the labour market.' The intention, at least, should be recognized as laudable. It is, perhaps, literally true to say that 'At present we hear nothing of masters combining against the men-the disposition to strike is all the other way.' (p. 12.) But why do we hear nothing? Simply because the men have not such means of making themselves heard as the masters. For weeks and months has the Times been abusing the Derby strike, as an attempt of the men to extort higher wages from the masters. It is no such thing; the stoppage of work originated with the masters, in order to compel the men to secede from the Union. Where no such tyranny was attempted, the men (at Derby) continued to work, and have so continued through the whole affair. True, we do not 'hear' of this, but we ought. And we believe that the real history of other strikes, which have been made the occasion of heaping odium on the workmen, is of a similar description. Let their errors be pointed out, but let them have full justice; and especially let them be encouraged in their exertions for the improvement of their condition; for the entire state of society, and its progress, depend on their effceting such improvement. But they will only be guided by the heads. of those, whose hearts they feel to be with them. This is very natural. No doubt such is the case with Miss Martineau; but we fear the fact will not be evident to them in her present publication. NOTES ON THE NEWSPAPERS.-(Continued from page 248.) 19th March. The Solicitor General's Motion on the Law of Libel.Few of the results of the Reform Bill have fallen more short of our hopes, than the conduct of the little band of enlightened and philosophic Radicals, Our expectations whom that great change introduced into the Legislature. of improvement in the general composition of Parliament, were never so sanguine as those of the more enthusiastic reformers. The majority of the We believe them to House of Commons have not much disappointed us. be as honest as men usually are, and in point of intellect and acquirements The circumstances of a fair sample of the higher classes of this country. society, and the prevalent modes of thinking among the people, unite in preventing the electors from seeking their representatives in the classes below the higher and if they did, although a greater number of conspicuous individuals might be selected from the whole of the community than from a part, it is by no means certain that the general mass would be improved in quality. We doubted before the Reform Bill, we doubt still, whether the general mind of the community is sufficiently advanced in its ideas, or sufficiently vigorous in its tone, to furnish, even under the best system of representation, any but a very indifferent Legislature. But we did expect that, through the avenues opened by the Reform Bill, individuals would find their way into Parliament, who would put forward, on every fitting occasion, with boldness and perseverance, the best political ideas which the country affords: and we thought we saw, in some of the names composing the Radical minority at the opening of the Reformed Parliament, a guarantee that our hope would be fulfilled. But the promise has not been kept. With one or two exceptions, at the head of which we must place Mr. Roebuck, (who, against innumerable obstacles, some of them of his own creating, is, with signal merit, working himself up into the station in public life to which his talents, energy, and sincerity entitle him,) none of the new Radical members on whom we had founded any hopes, have done enough to keep those hopes alive; and the cause of the Movement still rests exclusively upon its ancient supporters. We cannot understand how men so conscientious as some of these are, can reconcile this self-annihilation to their notions of worthiness. With the exception of their votes, which have been steadily given on the right side, we can name few things which any of them have done, more than might have been done by adherents of the present Ministry; and it was not for this, nor on the faith of these expectations, that they were sent to that House, in preference to men who, on any footing but that of strenuous advocates of the people's cause, had perhaps equal claims to theirs. But The usual excuse for inaction, that there is no good to be done,' never was so manifestly inapplicable. At all times there is much good to be done, if men will but resolve to do it. But the effects of individual exertion, though sure, are usually slow. Not so in the present state of politics. Every well-directed attempt, even by a solitary individual, to accomplish any worthy object, is sure of a certain measure of immediate success. It may be true that it is impossible to carry anything against the Ministry. there is hardly any limit to what may now be carried through the Ministry. Though Ministers seldom lead, they are willing to be led. To most of the reforms which a vigorous and enlightened Ministry would, in the present state of the public mind, venture to propose, the present Ministers are by no means hostile. Their faults, like those of the Radical Members, are chiefly those of omission. They do not like to involve themselves in new questions. They have already more to think of, more difficulties to surmount and exigencies to provide for, than they feel the strength to cope with. When you have forced a discussion on any subject, and compelled them to turn their minds to it, and make up an opinion one way or another, your business is half done. From having been anxious to stave off the question, they become anxious to settle it, so that the discussion may not be revived. The independent Members should take their measures accordingly. They should insist upon having all the great questions discussed. They should not yield to the representations which are sure to be made, which were made by the Chancellor on the Jewish question, that to be unremitting in exertion is not the way to succeed. It is the sure, and the only way. They should let no question sleep, and should agitate all the more important questions incessantly. Mr. O'Connell, among whose faults inactivity is not to be numbered, did not think that to force a discussion on the liberty of the press would do no good; and already his motion has compelled the Government to take up the subject, and a part of the necessary reform has a fair chance of being accomplished in the present Session. Since the publication of our last month's Notes, Mr. O'Connell's Bill for the Reform of the Law of Libel has been printed; and the objections to which it seemed liable, from his own statement, as reported in the newspapers, are applicable to it in a very inferior degree to what we had supposed. It does make provision for freedom of criticism on institutions and doctrines, with the single exception of religion; and, in case of private libel, instead of making truth in all cases a justification, it only allows the truth to be given in evidence, leaving the jury to decide what weight shall be allowed to it as a defence. Even this we continue to think objectionable, but, undoubtedly, in a far less degree. 20th March. Sir Robert Peel on the Corn Laws.-In the House of Commons yesterday an incidental discussion of the Corn Laws took place on the presentation of a petition. After a speech from Mr. Roebuck, of the great merits of which we should have remained ignorant if we had not accidentally seen the report of it in the Morning Post, Sir Robert Peel rose. Having first accused, by implication, Mr. Roebuck of presumption, in saying that the subject might be disposed of in five minutes, while he, though he had spoken much longer than five minutes, had not disposed of half of it; Sir Robert endeavoured to supply the remaining half by a speech in which all which was not truism was irrelevancy. Though Mr. Roebuck said, and said truly, that what is relevant to the question might be stated in five minutes, he could not have meant that so short a time would suffice for answering all the fallacies which may be accumulated round this or any other subject by ingenuity or folly. Sir Robert Peel's first argument was that of the peculiar burthens pressing upon the land; a consideration which no one who ever spoke or wrote against the corn laws has overlooked: but which is a reason for equalizing taxation, not for compensating a class supposed to be peculiarly overtaxed, by another and the worst of taxes-a tax on the people's food. The remainder of the speech may be thus summed up :That the corn laws could not be termed a monopoly, because, if the landlords have a protecting duty, so have all classes of manufacturers. It would take nearly five minutes to enumerate all the mistaken assumptions included in this argument. Whoever agrees with Sir Robert Peel must think the following things:-1. That if there are many monopolies instead of one, they cease to be monopolies. 2. That it is a legislative business not to do justice, but to establish an equal balance of injustice. 3. That if A gains sixpence by making B lose a shilling, the way to set all right is for B to treat A in the same manner: while in the meantime C, D, and E are robbed by both. 4. That duties on the importation of manufactures are a benefit to the manufacturer, in the same sense as duties on the importation of corn are a benefit to the landlord; whereas, in truth, the landlord obtains a higher rent, but the manufacturer does not obtain a higher profit, the protected trade being no better off as to profits than those which are not protected. 5. That an equal benefit is conferred on two persons, by protecting the one against a cheaper article than his own, the other against a dearer: that it is the same thing, in fact, to shut the door against the food which would come, and against the cottons and hardware that would not. When propositions which contain in a nutshell a whole Iliad of error, are put forth with an air of authority, and by a person of authority, as if they were the dernier mot of some great question, it is lamentable that there is no one, even of those who understand the subject, ready to start up at the instant and present the simple truth in the point of view in which it most vividly illuminates the fallacy, and makes its character visible. But the union of energy and ardour with knowledge and dialectical skill, is a combination too rare in our days to be soon hoped for. 26th March. The Ministry and the Dissenters.-The principal interest of the session, thus far, has been the question of the Church and the Dissenters. Even Church Reform, so prominent a topic for the last two years, has almost ceased to be talked of; and the subject now pressed upon the Legislature is the entire abolition of the Establishment. This is a fearful truth to Conservatives of all denominations; and even to considerate Radicals, there is matter for very serious reflection in so striking an instance of the artificial celerity given to the natural progress of change, by the very conduct which is expected to check it. If Ministers can profit by experience, they must surely by this time see how utterly the course which they have not adopted, but fallen into, is at variance with their own purposes. Those who most agree with them in their ends, have most cause to complain of their means. It is not as friends of the Movement that we lament the deficiencies of Ministers; in that character we ought much rather to rejoice at them; for the tide of change sets in far more violently through this passive resistance to it. But we wish the current to be gentle as well as rapid. We dread lest the violence of the struggle which is so needlessly made the sole means of obtaining reforms, should leave neither the leisure nor the frame of mind for choosing the most considerate mode of accomplishing them. One half the good, moreover, which we expect from the redress of grievances, will be lost, if, being extorted from the unwillingness of the Legislature, they leave behind them the feelings not of reconciliation but of victory and defeat. What a commentary have the last few weeks afforded on the principles of the King's Speech! If Ministers had announced of themselves, the intention of doing for the Dissenters all which in this short period they have been obliged successively to promise, they would have retained the large measure which they formerly possessed of the confidence of that immense body, and we should not have heard, perhaps for a long time to come, of a single petition for the separation of Church and State. The Movement has gained several years upon them in a few weeks; while in the same time they have let half their power of guiding its course slip out of their hands, by teaching their surest friends to hope for nothing from them but through the means which would be taken with enemies. Ministers made but humble pretensions at the opening of the session, and humble has been their conduct. They gave fair warning; they let all men know that it was no business of theirs to stir a step in improvement unless somebody drove them, and that whoever came with a petition in one hand, must come with a cudgel in the other. But it was absurd to imagine that those who had carried Catholic Emancipation, and the repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts, could have any objection to concede the little which is still withheld of religious liberty; and the Dissenters feeling this, did not use the cudgel, but quietly stated what they thought themselves entitled to demand, deeming that as they were speaking to friends, nothing further was requisite. They waited, and nothing came but the ridiculous Marriage Bill and they received every intimation short of an express declaration, that this was all they had to expect. Not because what they claimed was considered unfit to be granted; but merely because it could be refused. Thus warned, the Dissenters resorted to the cudgel: and now mark with what result. At each application of the weapon, Ministers rose in their offers. First they vaguely told the Dissenters not to conclude that nothing more was to be done for them. Then they would call the attention' of the House to the subject of Church Rates, and propose, as was at first given out, a diminution, which afterwards rose into a commutation, and was at last announced, though not officially, as an entire abolition. Next, the Marriage Bill was virtually given up, and several Ministers expressed their private opinion that marriage should be a civil contract. Next came a proposition for a general registry of births, marriages, and deaths; but at first, only from a brother of the Lord Chancellor; afterwards Lord Althorp hoped that such a registry, by being combined with another measure, might be introduced as a Government question; and possibly some relief might be afforded to the Dissenters on the subject of burials also. Lastly, a petition from Cambridge for the admission of Dissenters to graduate in that University, was presented by the Premier in the Lords, and by the Secretary to the Treasury in the House of Commons, and warmly supported both by them and by other leading members of the Administration. On this occasion (because it is a small one) they at length spoke as statesmen should speak: the tone was not that of reluctant concession, but of earnest advocacy: as if they were not only willing to do justice, but were glad of the opportunity. How much more highly would they now have stood in reputation and in real power, had they adopted this tone throughout, and from the commencement! How much might they yet retrieve, were they even now to adopt it! TO CORRESPONDENTS.-On the Application of the terms Poetry, &c. ;' and on 'Death Punishment,' in our next; when we hope to bring up the arrears of our Critical Notices. 6 Kathleen's other song is (with her permission) gone into the Months.' 2. On Miss Martineau's Summary of Political Economy 3. Songs of the Months. No. 5. May. A May-Day Memory PAGR . 313 . 318 . 322 4. On the Application of the Terms Poetry, Science, and Philosophy. 323 5. On the Propriety of totally Abolishing Death-Punishment 332 6. On the Writings and Genius of Caroline Bowles, by Wm. Howitt. 336 7. The Unwritten Word, by the Author of Corn Law Rhymes 8. The Evils of Primogenitive Inheritance 9. The Poor Woman's Appeal to her Husband 10. The Phaetons of Knowledge 15 Opinions of the non-petitioning Public on Church Reform. The Book of Penalties-Report on the State of Public Instruction in 17. Notice to Correspondents. € 346 . 348 . 351 . 352 . 378 |