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- A UHKMFIONjOF ORTHODOXY THUS REPLIES
RELIGION.
Sir,
A Correspondent on the above subject in your paper of last
week, styling himself “ Layman,” should have been
and styled
himself a “ Socinian” (a nickname foi’ an Atheist).
He has acted like all cowards act,—first misrepresent the opinions of
their opponents and then abuse them. Being a Layman (so called), I
venture to answer your Correspondent “ according to his folly,” and
challenge him to a public discussion, at any time and place, and defy him
to disprove the following propositions :—
That the Bible, fairly interpreted, teaches the following to be the
revealed will of God, and experience proves its truth :
1. That there are three persons, yet but one God.
2. That there is a future state of happiness, and misery, eternal in its
nature, and increasing as to its effects, let that happiness or misery arise
from what cause it may.
3. That Satan (or the Devil) first deceived our first parents, and from
that time to the present reigns in the hearts of all who have not repented
and believed on Christ.
4. That all mankind are born in sin, possessed of a fallen nature,
which leads them to love sin and hate God. This hatred is manifested
by all without distinction, high and low—your Correspondent not excepted.
5. That infants are not admitted into Paradise because of their
innocence by nature but by grace—“Christ died for them,” therefore,
baptized or unbaptized, if they die in infancy, in whatever clime, “ they
sleep in Jesus.”
6. That an atonement for sin was necessary. That Christ was, by
his Divine nature joined to the human, a fit sacrifice ; and His death and
resurrection confirms His power—and having atoned for the sins of the
whole world, He ascended upon high, and ever liveth to intercede for us.
The instruments God used to accomplish His purposes have nothing to do
with the atonement made. The Jews were as much the murderers of our
Saviour as though God’s design had been overturned, “ but our God turned
it into a blessing’' Christ could have died for us in some other way had
the Jews received Him, for “without shedding of blood is no remission.”
7. That repentance towards God, and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ,
from Adam to now, have ever been followed with a consciousness of sins
forgiven, a heart renewed in righteousness and true holiness, and a hope
of eternal rest and power, through the in-dwelling Spirit of God, to live
unspotted from the world, doing good in their day and generation—proving
by their life and conversation that they “ seek a city which hath
foundations whose builder and maker is Godand when death comes
triumph over it, and die in hopes of a blissful immortality.
That there are many who teach otherwise we admit, but who are
they ? Papists, who deny the Scriptures to be the rule of our lives;
Puseyites, who are “ bastards of the Pope of Romeand Protestants
�4
(shame on the laws which compel us) are compelled to keep them—they
are spiritual thieves and murderers of the souls of men—common; high-'
waymen and murderers are angels when compared to them; Unitarians or
Socinians, who misquote and mistranslate Scripture, devil like, in order to
establish their unholy creed, viz., “ to live a devil and die a saint;” Anti,
nomians, who hope to be saved through a process they call “ election,” a
scheme concocted in the infernal regions, and sent into the world to
deceive mankind.
But all true Protestants of whatever name, and their name is Legion
—Methodists over 2,000,000, with chapel accommodation for 12,000,000;
Independents, 1,000,000, with chapel accommodation for 4,000,000; not to
mention Baptists, Evangelical Churchmen, and others, who, with the
immortal Chillingworth, cry out, “ The Bible and the Bible alone is the
religion of Protestants.”
Yours, &c.,
Oct. 9, 1865.
B. STICKLAND.
C.’s
REJOINDER.
Sir,
Your Correspondent, Mr. B. Stickland, fearfully denounces
all those who do not happen to entertain the same religious opinions as
himself.
My letter which you were kind enough to insert in your
impression of the 7th, has sorely grieved him. It is well he has not the
power of the inquisitors of old, or I might have suffered for my “heresy”
some fine morning at Smithfield or on Tower Hill. He evidently questions
my sincerity, for, says he, had I “ been honest ” I should have styled my
self a “ Socinian, a nickname for Atheist,” but I am “ like all cowards,”
I “ misrepresent and then abuse;” yet he “ will answer me according to
my folly,” and “ challenge me to public discussion,” when he will “ defy
me to disprove” his views. Bravo, Mr. Stickland! He evidently does
not want your readers to think him “ a coward,” yet how mightily
Pharasaical. He produces some half dozen of what he calls “propositions,’’
and adds, that those who “ teach otherwise ” are “ Papists who deny the
Scriptures, Puseyites who are bastards of the Pope, spiritual thieves, and
murderers of the souls of men !” “ Common highwaymen and murderers
are angels compared to them ; Unitarians and Sociniaus, who misquote
and mistranslate Scripture, devil-like, in order to establish their unholy
creed,” viz., “ to live a devil and die a saint.” “ Antinomians, who hope
to be saved by election, a scheme concocted in the infernal regions,” &c..
&c., &c. I
One would certainly conclude by this that Mr. S. is on terms of great
intimacy with his satanic majesty, as he appears to be quite au fait with
him, and his “ infernal regions.” I decidedly admit his superior knowledge
in this respect.
“But,” adds Mr. S. “all true Protestants,” such as he is, of course,
“ think otherwise,” &c., &c.
Now, in the name of common sense, what reason is there in all his
denunciations. Has our great teacher, Christ, who Mr. S. professes to
serve, ever given him the shadow of such a creed as is contained in his
seven propositions? Compare Mr. Stickland’s letter and creed with
Christ’s Sermon on the Mount, and mark the contrast ! Oh, Mr. S.,
“ first cast the beam out of thine own eye,” &c.
�
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Title
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Victorian Blogging
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
Date
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2018
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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Pamphlet
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Title
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A champion of orthodoxy thus replies. Religion.
Creator
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Stickland, B.
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: [s.n.]
Collation: 3-4 p. ; 22 cm.
Notes: A letter to the Hackney and Kingsland Gazette in response to a letter by W.E. Conner. Conner's rejoinder is also printed. Reprinted from the Hackney and Kingsland Gazette, October 9 or 10, 1865. From the library of Dr Moncure Conway.
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[s.n.]
Date
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[1865]
Identifier
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G5258
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Theology
Religion
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<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (A champion of orthodoxy thus replies. Religion.), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
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Text
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English
Conway Tracts
Orthodoxy
Religion
-
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8177eb544bfab33763c540e0b3799ed8
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Text
LABOURS PRAYER.
BY C. BBADLAUGH.
“ Give us thisday our daily bread ” is the entreaty addressed
by the tiller of the soil to the “ Otr Father,” who has pro
mised to answer prayer. And what answer cometh from
heaven to this the bread winner’s petition? Walk amongst
the cotton workers of Lancashire, the clothweavers of
Yorkshire, the Durham pit men, the Staffordshire puddlers,
the Cornish miners, the London dock labourers, go any
where where hands are roughened with toil, where foreheads
are bedewed with sweat of work, and see the Lord’s res
ponse to the prayer, the fatlrer’s answer to his children!
The only bread they get is the bread they take; in their
hard struggle for life-sustenance, the loaves come but
slowly, and heaven adds not a crust, even though the
worker be hungry, when he rises from his toil-won meal.
Not even the sight of pale faced wife, and thin forms of
half starved infants can move to generosity the Ruler of
the world. The labourer may pray, but, if work be scant
and wages low, he pines to death while praying. His
prayer gives no relief, and misery’s answer is the mocking
echo to his demand.
It is said by many a pious tongue that God helps the
poor; the wretchedness of some of their hovel houses, found,
alas ! too often in the suburbs of our wealthiest cities, grimy,
black, squalid, and miserable; the threadbare raggedness of
their garments ; the unwholesomeness of the food they eat;
the poisoned air they breathe in their narrow wynds and
filthy alleys; all these tell how much God helps the poor.
Do you want to see how God helps the poor ? go into any
police court when some little child-thief is brought up for
�2
labour’s prayer.
hearing; see him shoeless, with ragged trousers, thread»
bare, grimy, vest, hardly hanging to his poor body, shirt
that seems as though it never could have been white, skin
dull brown with dirt, hair innocent of comb or brush, eye
ignorantly, sullenly-defiant, yet downcast; born poor, born
wretched, born in ignorance, educated amongst criminals,
crime the atmosphere in which he moved ; and society, his
nurse and creator, is now virtuously aghast at the depra
vity of this its own neglected nursling, and a poor creature
whom God alone hath helped. Go where the weakly wife
in a narrow room huddles herself and little children day after
day : and where the husband crowds in to lie down at night:
they are poor and honest, but their honesty bars not the
approach of disease, fever, sorrow, death—God helps not
the line of health to their poor wan cheeks. Go to the
country workhouse in which is temporarily housed the
worn out farm labourer, who, while strength enough re
mained, starved through weary years with wife and several
children on eight shillings per week—it is thus God helps
the poor. And the poor are taught to pray for a continu
ance of this help, and to be thankful and content to pray
that to-morrow may be like to-day, thankful that yester
day was no worse than it was, and content to-day is as
good as it is. Are there many repining at their miseries,
the preacher, with gracious intonation, answers rebukingly
that God, in his wisdom, has sent these troubles upon them
as chastisement for their sins. So, says the church, all are
sinners, rich as well as poor, but rich sinners feel the
chastising rod is laid more lightly on their backs than it
is upon those of their meaner brethren. Week-day and
Sunday it is the same contrast; one wears fustian, the
other broadcloth, one prepares for heaven in the velvet
cushioned pew, the other on the wooden benches of the
free seats. In heaven it will be different—all there above
are to wear crowns of gold and fine linen, and, therefore,
here below the poor man is to be satisfied with the state of
life into which it has pleased God to call him. The pastor
who tells him this, looks upon the labourer as an inferior
�LABOUR. S PRAYER.
S
animal, and the labourer by force of habit regards the great
landowner and peer, who patronises his endeavours, as a
being of a superior order. Is there no new form of prayer
that labour might be taught to utter, no other power to
■which his petition might be addressed ? Prayer to the un
known for aid gives no strength to the prayer. In each
beseeching, he loses dignity and self-reliance, he trusts to
he knows not what, for an answer which cometh, he knows
■not when, and mayhap may never come at all. Let labour
pray in the future in another fashion and at another altar.
Let labourer pray to labourer that each may know labour’s
rights, and be able to fulfil labour’s duties. The size of
the loaf of daily bread must depend on the amount of the
daily wages, and the labourer must pray for better wages.
But his prayer must take the form of earnest, educated en
deavour to obtain the result desired. Let workmen, in
stead of praying to God in their distress, ask one another
why are wages low? how can wages be raised? can we
raise our own wages? having raised them, can we keep
them fixed at the sum desired ? what causes produce a rise
and fall in wages ? are high wages beneficial to the labourer ?
These are questions the pulpit has no concern with. The
reverend pastor will tell you that the “ wages of sin is death,”
and will rail against “filthy lucrebut he has no incli
nation for answering the queries here propounded. Why
are wages low? Wages are low because the wage-winners
crowd too closely. W ages are low because too many seek
to share one fund. Wages are lower still because the
. ’abourer fights against unfair odds; the laws of the country
overriding the laws of humanity, have been enacted with
out the labourer’s consent, although his obedience to them
is enforced. The fund is unfairly distributed as well as
too widely divided. Statutes are gradually being modified,
and the working man may hope for ampler justice from the
employer in the immediate future than was possible in
the past, but high and healthy wages depend on the work
ing man himself. Wages can be raised by the working
classes exereising a moderate degree of caution in increase
�4
LABOUR’S PRAYER.
ing their numbers. Wages must increase when capital in
creases more rapidly than population, and it is the duty of
the working man, therefore, to take every reasonable pre
caution to check the increase of population, and to accelerate
the augmentation of capital.
Can working-men, by combination, permanently raise the
rate of wages ? One gentleman presiding at a meeting of
the National Association for the Promotion of Social Science
for the discussion of the labour question, very fairly said,
“ It is not in the power of the men alone, or of the masters
alone, or of both combined, to say what shall be the amount
of wages at any particular time in any trade or country.
The men and the masters are, at most, competitors for the
division at a certain rate, of a certain fund, provided by
[themselves and] others—that is, by the consumers. If that
fund is small, no device can make the rate of profit or rate
of wages higher.” This is in theory quite correct, if it
means that no device can make the total divisible greater
than it is, but not if it refers to the increase of profit or
wages by partial distribution. In practice, although it is
true that if the fund be small and the seekers to share it
be many, the quotient to each must be necessarily very
small, yet it is also true that a few of the competitors—i.e.t
the capitalists, may and do absorb for their portions of
profits an improper and unfairly large amount, thus still
further reducing the wretchedly small pittance in any case
receivable by the mass of labourers. It is warmly con
tended that the capitalist and labourer contend for division
of the fund appropriable in fair and open field; that the
capitalist has his money to employ, the man his labour to
sell ; that if workmen are in excess of the capitalist’s
requirements, so that the labourer has to supplicate for
employment, wages cannot rise, and will probably fall; but
that if, on the contrary, capital has need to invite additional
labourers, then wages must rise. That is the law of supply
and demand brought prominently forward. In great part
this is true, but it is not true that capital and labour com
pete in fair and open field, any more than it is true that a<
�labour’s prayer.
yron-elad war vessel, with heavy ordnance, would compete
in fair field with a wooden frigate, equipped with the
materiel in use thirty years ago. Capital is gold-plated,
and carries too many guns for unprotected labour. The
intelligent capitalist makes the laws affecting master and
servant, which the uneducated labourer must obey, but has
no effective voice to alter. The capitalist forms the govern
ment of the country, which in turn protects capital against
labour; this government the labourer must sustain, and
dares not modify. The capitalist does combine, and has
combined, and the result of this combination has been an
unfair appropriation of the divisible fund. Why should
not the labourer combine also ? The answer is truly that
no combination of workmen can increase the rate of wages,
if at the same time the number of labourers increases more
rapidly than the capital out of which their wages must be
paid. But the men may combine to instruct one another
in the laws of political economy; they may combine to
apply their knowledge of those laws to the contracts be
tween employer and employed. They may combine to
compel the repeal of unjust enactments under which an un
fair distribution of the labour fund is not only possible,
but certain. Organisations of labourers are, therefore, wise
and necessary: the object of such organisations should be
the permanent elevation and enfranchisement of the mem
bers. No combination of workmen, which merely dictates
a temporary cessation from labour, can ultimately and per
manently benefit the labourer; while it certainly imme
diately injures him and deteriorates his condition, making
his home wretched, his family paupers. Nor can even co
operative combination, praiseworthy as it certainly is, to
procure for the labourer a larger share of the profits of his
labour, permanently benefit him, except in so far that
temporarily alleviating his condition, and giving him lei
sure for study, it enables him to educate himself: unless,
at the same time, the co-operator is conscious that the in
crease or reduction in the amount of wages depends entirely
on the ratio of relation preserved between population and
�labour’s prayer.
its means of subsistence, the former always having a tendency to increase more rapidly than the latter. It is with
the problem of too many mouths for too little bread that
the labourer has really to deal: if he must pray, it should
be for more bread and for fewer mouths. The answer often
given by the workman himself to the advocate of Malthusian
views is, that the world is wide enough for all, that there
are fields yet tfnploughed broad enough to bear more corn
than man at present could eat, and that there is neither too
little food, nor are there too many mouths ; that there is, in
fact, none of that over-population with which it is sought
to affright the working-man. Over-population in the sense
that the whole world is too full to contain its habitants, or
that it will ever become too full to contain them, is certainly
a fallacy, but over-population is a lamentable truth in its
relative sense. We find evidences of over-population in
every old country of the world. The test of over-population
is the existence of povei’ty, squalor, wretchedness, disease,
ignorance, misery, and crime. Low rate of wages, and food
dear, here you have two certain indices of relative over
population. Wages depending on the demand for and
supply of labourers, wherever wages are low it is a certain
sign that there are too many candidates for employment in
that phase of the labour market. The increased cost of
pioduction of food, and its consequent higher price, also
mark that the cultivation has been forced by the numbers
of the people to descend to less productive soils. Poverty
is the test and result of over-population.
It is not against some possible increase of their numbers,
which may produce possibly greater affliction, that the
working men are entreated to agitate. It is against the
_ existing evils which afflict their ranks, evils alleged by
sound students of political economy to have already resulted
from inattention to the population question, that the ener
gies of the people are sought to be directed. The operation
. the law of population has been for centuries entirely
agnoie by those who have felt its adverse influence most
severely. It is only during the last thirty years that any
�labour’s prayer.
pf the working classes have turned their attention to the
question; and only during the last few years that it has
been to any extent discussed amongst them. Yet all the
prayers that labour ever uttered since the first breath of
human life, have not availed so much for human happiness
as will the earnest examination by one generation of this,;
the greatest of all social questions, the root of all political
problems, the foundation of all civil progress. Poor—man
must be wretched. Poor—he must be ignorant. Poor—
he must be criminal: and poor he must be till the cause
of poverty has been ascertained by the poor man himself,
and its cure planned by .the poor man’s brain, and effected
by the poor man’s hand
Outside his own rank none can save the poor. Others
may show him the abyss, b ut he must avoid its dangerous
brink himself. Others may point out to him the chasm,
but he must build his own bridge over. Labour’s prayer
must be to labour’s head for help from labour’s hand to
strike the blow that severs labour’s chain, and terminates
the too long era of labour’s suffering.
During the last few years our daily papers, and various
periodicals, magazines, and reviews have been more fre
quently, and much less partially, devoted than of old to the
discussion of questions relating to the labourer’s condition,
and the means of ameliorating it. In the Legislative As
sembly debates have taken place which would have been
impossible fifty years since. Works on political economy
are now more easily within the reach of the working man
than they were some few years ago. People’s editions are
now published of treatises on political economy which half
a century back the people were unable to read. It is now
possible for the labourer, and it is the labourer’s duty, to
make himself master of the laws which govern the produc
tion and distribution of wealth. Undoubtedly there is
much grievous wrong in the mode of distribution of wealth,
by which the evils that afflict the poorest strugglers are
often specially and tenfold aggravated. The monopoly of
land, the serf state of th$ labourer, are points requiring
�iiABOtritsr PAAYEte.
energetic agitation. The grave and real question is, ho^S
ever, that which lies at the root of all, the increase of
wealth as against the increase of those whom it subsists.
The leaders of the great trades’ unions of the country, if
hey really desire to permanently increase the happiness of
the classes amongst whom they exercise influence, can
speedily promote this object by encouraging their members
to discuss freely the relations of labour to capital; not
moving in one groove, as if labour and capital were neces
sarily antagonistic, and that therefore labour must always
have rough-armed hand to protect itself from the attacks
of capital; but, taking new ground, to inquire if labour and
capital are bound to each other by any and what ties, ascer
taining if the share of the labourer in the capital fund
depends, except so far as affected by inequality in distribu
tion, on the proportion between the number of labourers and
the amount of the fund. The discussing, examining, and
dealing generally with these topics, would necessarily
compel the working man to a more correct appreciation of
his position.
Any such doctrine as that ‘ ‘ the poor shall never cease
out of the landor that we are to be content with the
station in life into which it has pleased God to call us ; or
that we are to ask and we shall receive, must no longer
avail. Schiller most effectively answers the advocates of
prayer—
“ Help, Lord, help ! Look with pity down!
A paternoster pray;
What God does, that is justly done,
His grace endures for aye.”
u Oh, mother! empty mockery,
God hath not justly dealt by me:
Have I not begged and prayed in vain;
What boots it now to pray again ?”
Labour’s only and effective prayer must be in life action
for its own redemption ; action founded on thought, crude
thought, and sometimes erring at first, but ultimately
developed into useful thinking, by much patient experi
menting for the right and true*
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Victorian Blogging
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Conway Hall Library & Archives
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2018
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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Labour's prayer
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Bradlaugh, Charles [1833-1891]
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Place of publication: London
Collation: 8 p. ; 18 cm.
Notes: Date of publication from the Selection of Bradlaugh's political pamphlets / John Saville (New York: 1970).
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Charles Bradlaugh and Annie Besant
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[1865]
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N097
G5678
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Labour
Social problems
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<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (Labour's prayer), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
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English
Labour Movement-England-History-19th Century
Wages
Working Classes
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[REGISTERED FOR TRANSMISSION ABROAD.]
CONTENTS.
PAGE
L’ Entente Oordiale.............. ....................... 523
The Inefficiency of Capital Punishment... 525
The Peace of God............v........................... 527
A Cow trying it on..............................
529
The Freedmen’s Association .................... 529
PAGE
The Re-action of Great Wrongs................
A Relic of Slavery .....................................
The Victory of Defeat.....................
“ Wayside Warhles” ..................................
The African Boy .........................................
530
533
534
535
537
L’ Entente Cordiale.
The French Invasion Panic has long been in a moribund state. The
funeral obsequies were performed at Cherbourg a few days ago, England
and France uniting to bury the dead monster with every possible de
monstration, not of sorrow, but of joy and exultation over its early and
gratefully welcome death. Its funeral oration was pronounced by the
French Minister of Marine, M. Chasseloup Laubat, who at the banquet
given to the Lords of the English Admiralty proposed the toast of
“Her Majesty, Queen .Victoria, and the ‘entente cordiale' between
England and France.” He said that the time of hostile rivalry between
the two countries had passed away. There now only remained emula
tion in doing everything that could advance the cause of civilisation
and liberty. “Freedom of the seas, pacific contests in labour,
beneficent conquests achieved by commerce,” said the French minister.
“ Such is the signification of the union of the noble flags of England
and France.”
The Duke of Somerset, the English First Lord of the Admiralty,
replying to the toast, thanked M. Laubat for the sentiments he had
expressed, and continued: “ We accept the toast as a proof of the
cordial friendship of the Emperor and the French nation for our Queen
and country. We also entertain, on our part, the same sentiments of
esteem for the Emperor of the French. In proposing the health of the
London: JOB CAUDWELL, 335, Strand. W.C.
Simpkin, Marshall & Co., and Kent & Co,
�524
THE BOND OP BROTHERHOOD.
[September 1, 1865.
Emperor, I wish to speak not only in the name of the government of
any political party, but in the name of every enlightened Englishman.”
These noble words were uttered respectively by the representatives of
the French and English Governments at Cherbourg, under the guns,
as it were, of the allied fleets, and under the shadow of those gigantic
fortresses which were so dexterously used by the alarmists in this
country, a very few years since, as a bugbear with which to frighten
the English nation into a belief in the imminent danger of a French
invasion and the necessity of a vast increase in our English armaments,
and the erection of costly new coast fortifications with which to
menace and dishearten our French neighbours.
It must be re-assuring, we think, to every “enlightened Englishman”
—as the Duke of Somerset expresses it—to find the invasion panic so
suddenly displaced, and so happily succeeded by an entente cordiale,
ratified by the friendly union of the two fleets at Cherbourg and Brest,
at Plymouth and Portsmouth, and confirmed by the most enthusiastic
demonstrations of popular approval and sympathy in both countries.
Det us adopt the words of the French Minister of Marine as a suitable
inscription to be graven on the tombstone of the departed “Panic” !
Can anything be more appropriate ? “ The time of hostile rivalry
between the two countries has passed away : there now only remains
emulation in everything that can advance the cause of civilisation and
liberty ! ” Is it possible that idle prejudices of the past can avail to
deter the English and French people from turning to practical account
these wise words which offer a new standard by which to regulate the
future international policy of Europe. The friendly confidence of the
two governments will surely inspire mutual confidence between the two
peoples, and we shall cease to deem it necessary to squander millions
upon millions of the hard earnings of industry upon those gigantic
standing armaments, which, now that “ the time of hostile rivalry has
passed away,” can only be regarded as burlesques upon our own pro
fession of mutual confidence and goodwill, and as scandals upon the
civilisation of the age in which we live. It will not do to rest satisfied
with fetes on either side of the channel, and fraternisation speeches
made by great naval authorities. These must be followed up by joint
endeavours to realise some of the practical fruits which the people have
a right to expect from demonstrations so happily suggestive of a good
time coming; a time when
War shall be
A monster of iniquity,
In the good time coming,
and when the burdens of the poor shall be lightened by a simultaneous
reduction of the armaments of Europe, and by the impetus which will be
given to the trade aDd commerce of all countries by the universal
feeling of confidence and stability which a policy of disarmament will
inspire. The advocates of “ Peace, Retrenchment, and Reform ” will
surely take heart, and seek every opportunity to impress upon the new
House of Commons the necessity of early and vigorous effort to give
substantial effect to the hopes and expectations raised by the recent
fraternisation at the great French and English naval ports. No pains
�September 1, 1865.]
THE BOND OF BROTHERHOOD.
525
will be spared by those interested in maintaining things as they are to
prevent any practical issue in the shape of greater economy in the war
like expenditure of the nation. The patronage and pay of the military
and naval services have been too long and too extensively enjoyed to
be lightly relinquished or even diminished, but the new currents of
public thought and feeling which have been set in motion at Plymouth
and Cherbourg, at Brest and Portsmouh, can never again be lulled
absolutely to rest. They cannot, they will not rest, but will bear us on
to yet higher and greater and more comprehensive ideas of the privileges
and duties of international relationship; the mistakes of the past will
be rectified as they come to be looked at from the new stand-point, and
it will be discovered that national security, national prosperity, and
national honour can be established upon a far sounder and more satis
factory basis through the agencies of Christian civilisation than through
a fatuous dependence upon the insane rivalry which has been so long
pursued in the maintenance of armed force. May the “ noble flags of
Prance and England” continue to float peacefully side by side through
all future time, and may the peaceful alliance of England and France
be at once an incentive and an example to all other states to aim at the
final abolition of all war, and the establishment of permanent and
universal peace throughout the world !
_____________ _____
E. P.
The Inefficiency of Capital Punishment.
To the Editor of the “Bond”
Sin,—Notwithstanding “the great moral lesson” of deterrence just
afforded hy the execution of Dr. Pritchard and others, five murders
at London and Ramsgate, and three at Bankside, have been perpetrated
almost before the termination of the summer assizes, which have
resulted in the solemn display of the gallows.
Thus we have another striking instance of the frequently illustrated
fact that the occurence of an execution, or of a notorious capital trial
for murder constitutes a strong presumptive probability of the speedy
repetition of further similar crime.
It was so in the metropolis last autumn. Muller was executed
November 14th, and on the evening of the very same day William
Bessemer, an engineer, stabbed Leonard Blackburn, in Berwick Street,
exclaiming, presently afterwards, “ I will be hung for him, as Muller
was for Briggs.” The same week Elizabeth Burns cut the throat of
her son, in Southwark, and stated to the magistrate (Mr. Woolrych)
“ Yes, I intended to murder them all, as I wish to die—I want to be
ihung.” A few days previously, Wm. Greenwood, a soldier, attempted
to murder Margaret Sullivan, in Gray’s-Inn-Road, and, on his appre
hension, said to a policeman: “ I will be hung for her, I don’t mind
swinging with Muller for such as her.” Again, just after Muller’s
sentence, another foreigner (Kohl) committed the horrible murder at
Plaistow for which he was shortly afterwards hanged. And nine days
after Muller’s execution Alfred Jackson .murdered Thomas Roberts at
Clerkenwell, almost under the shadow of the gallows of the Old Bailey.
�526
THE BOND OF BROTHERHOOD.
[September 1,1865.
Yet another murder also took place at Hatcham, near London, in the
interval between Muller’s sentence and execution. Such an extra
ordinary outbreak of homicidal crimes in the metropolitan district is,
I believe, utterly unprecedented, and if capital sentences are efficient
to deter, the period of their occurence should have been the very last
one where they might have been looked for.
The notorious quadruple execution at Liverpool two years ago,
instead of deterring from murder in that place, for some considerable
subsequent period at least, was followed in a few weeks by five murders
and one attempt to murder; all the crimes being committed in the
same town.
In like manner a recent execution for the murder of a child at
Chatham, by Burton (who had expressed a wish to be hanged), was
followed in a few weeks by another murder of a child in the same town
by Alfred Holden, who also repeatedly uttered a desire to be hanged,
a wish which was not refused • and a third murder was perpetrated at
Chatham shortly after these two executions.
Space would fail for the number and details of similar illustrations
which might be adduced evincing the tendency of capital sentences
and executions to foster a morbid desire for notoriety or murderous
imitation.
Recent events strongly exhibit the anomalous and very irregular
treatment of murderers which is inevitably necessitated by the enact
ment of death penalties. Juries will persist in acquitting murderers
even in peculiarly atrocious cases. The Home Office is again and
again importuned by deputations and individuals ; and necesarily so.
Pleas of insanity are raised on murder trials, both rightly and wrongly
in various cases according to the respective circumstances, but equally
bewildering and undesirable, whether such pleas are well founded or not.
The result of all this is confusion, wide-spread dissatisfaction, and
encouragement to the most violent persons. Thus two men have just
been sentenced to death at Winchester. One (Hughes) was hung
whilst the mob outside the gallows were calling loudly for the authori
ties to bring out the other (Broomfield), whose sentence had been
commuted. At the last Lent Assizes at Exeter, when the atrocious
child murderess, Charlotte Winsor, was first put on her trial, the jury
could not agree, eight being for an acquittal and four for a verdict of
guilty. A second jury have now found her guilty on the same charge,
but the irregularity has necessitated her reprieve. At the recent
Maidstone Summer Assizes, 1865, the bystanders were astounded at
the extraordinary and most unexpected acquittals of Thomas Jones
and Elizabeth Inglis, both charged with murder on evidence apparently
clear and strong. By a like special uncertainty in the enforcement
of capital penalties, a Dr. Smethurst was acquitted, and a Dr. Pritchard
hanged. At the execution of the latter, the mob loudly cheered
Calcraft, whilst at Wright’s execution in Southwark, yells and groans
evinced the general sense of an inconsistent departure from the recent
precedents of the Hall and Townley commutations.
But if capital punishment were abolished, there would then be
removed the chief cause of nearly all this irregularity, this sympathy
�September 1, 1865.]
THE BOND OF BROTHERHOOD.
527
for the criminal rather than for the victim, this unwillingness of juries
to convict, this inevitable danger of sometimes visiting inherent mental
affliction or disease with a fatal punishment, and this widespread
popular apprehension of administrative partiality or inequitable dis
tinction.
May the repeated experiences of these evils more and more awaken
and direct public attention to the superior efficacy of severe secondary
punishments for murder, with certainty of infliction, rather than capital
penalties necessarilly and inevitably encompassed with uncertainty,
and with many chances of partial or total escape for the most atrocious
and dangerous of criminals !
I remain, Sir, yours truly,
William Tallack,
Secretary to the Society for the Abolition
of Capital Punishment.
63, Southampton Street, Strand.
The *’ Peace of God.”
The grievous famines, the consequent diseases which prevailed in
some parts of France at the close of the tenth century, and the general
belief that the end of the world was at hand induced the great feudal
lords and the people to promise to abstain from private warfare. The
Ecclesiastics continued to preach this Peace of God, as it was called,
after men, recovering from these calamities, had began to violate it.
Some years afterwards, says a contemporary, Glaubius, all Europe
suffered again from a terrible famine, in fact for more than sixty years
famine and its attendant mortality came upon them as terrible scourges,
and awakened religious zeal which held the wars prevailing in every
province of France as violation of the laws of Christianity. In 1035,
a bishop announced that he had received from heaven the command to
preach peace on the earth. “Soon,” said Glaubius, “the bishops, first
in Aguitamo, soon after in the province of Arles and in the Lyonnese,
then in Burgundy, and at last in all France assembled councils at
which the clergy and all the people assembled. As it had been
proclaimed that it was the object of these councils to renew or renovate
the peace of the sacred institutions of the faith, the people assembled
with joy ready to obey the orders of the pastors cf the church. In
those councils a description was drawn out in chapters, containing a
list on one hand of all that was forbidden, and on the other of all that
the subscribers engaged not to do by a devout promise to God. The
most important of these engagements was that to preserve an inviolable
peace, so that men of all ranks might thereafter go without arms and
without fear, notwithstanding any pretence whatever for attacking them
which might have been previously made.”
When a provincial council had established this “Peace of God,”
public notice was given by a deacon mounting the pulpit and pro
nouncing a curse on those who should break the peace,—“We
�528
THE BOND OF BROTHERHOOD.
[September 1, 1865.
excommunicate all the knights of this bishopric who will not pledge
themselves to maintain peace and. justice; may they and all those
who help them to do evil be accursed; may they be found with Cain
the fratricide, with the traitor Judas, with Dathan and Abiram, who
descended alive into Hell.”* The bishops and the priests who held
lighted tapers extinguished them on the ground whilst the people
exclaimed, as one man, “ May God thus extinguish the happiness of
those who will not accept peace and justice.”
This “ Peace of God ” was so opposed to national manners that soon
after it was but little observed. But those who had sworn to do so agreed
to re-assemble at the end of five years, to give it greater stability.
With this object, says Sismundi, several provincial councils met in
1041, in Aguitamo, at which the term “Truce of God” was substituted
for “Peace of God,” and it was sought rather to limit than to abolish
war.
“We have,” says Sismundi, “ the acts of the Council of Tuluges, in
Roussillon, of Ansome, of St. Giles, and of some others, for the estab
lishment of the “ Truce of God.” These acts are not entirely uniform,
but the principle which all maintained was always to limit the right to
carry on war, and to forbid, under the severest ecclesiastical penalties
(even at the moment when all laws seemed abrogated by war) those
actions which were contrary to humanity and to the rights of men.
Notwithstanding the diversity of these enactments of council, a general
law on war and on the Truce of God, was adopted in Europe. Hosti
lities, even between soldiers, were restricted to certain days of the
week, and certain classes of persons were shielded from these hostilities.
Every warlike act, every attack, all rapine, all shedding of blood, was
forbidden between the setting of the sun on Wednesday evening and
its rising on Monday morning, so that only three days and nights in
the week were allowed for the violence of war and of vengeance.
During Lent no one could commence new fortifications, nor work on
the old.
The clergy if not armed, and churches not fortified were to be always
safe from violence. Agriculture, also, was protected. It was no longer
permitted at any time to wound or to injure peasants, whether men or
women, nor to arrest them except according to law for individual
breaches of it. The instruments of tillage, the stack-yard, cattle, &c.,
were placed under the protection of the “ Truce of God.” Some of
these things could not be taken as plunder, and others which might be
taken to be used were not to be burnt or otherwise destroyed.
In several provinces of Erance, peace officers and an armed police,
supported by a “ pacata” or “ peace-rate” were appointed to repress
infractions of this law. But in the little territory of Henry I. this
Truce was not permitted; that weak king deemed it an infraction of
his right, although himself unable to protect his subjects.
*
* Concilium Lemovicense Secundum, t. ix., p. 891.
f Concilium Tulugreuse, t. xi.,p. 510, &c., Hist, of Languedoc, lib. xiv., ch. 9.
As quoted by Sismundi, vol. iv., p. 250.
J Sismundi Historic des Francois, vol. 1‘”
�Septemper 1, 1865.]
THE BOND OF BROTHERHOOD.
529
Sismundi says : “ This legislation was often violated, and ultimately
became a dead letter, and yet we must consider it as the most glorious
of the efforts of the clergy one which contributed most to the develop
ment of feelings of commiseration amongst men, to their sufferings and
to their enjoyments, of as much peace and happiness as seemed possible
with their state of society.
A Cow Trying it on.
An illicit distiller in America recently run the machine” in a small
way for private consumption and for his neighbours’ use. He had
turned out seventeen gallons of the fieriest kind of whiskey, and poured
it in a tub to cool outside his domestic distillery. A poor honest
cow, parched with thirst, coming up, thrust her head into it, and
drank it off to the last drop. She staggered home, literally “ beastly
drunk,” and for weeks was the most miserable wretch that ever tried
to walk on four legs in vain. Day after day she was raised up and
assisted to stand by several moderate drinkers of less physical under
standing, but as soon as they withdrew their hands she would collapse
just like a human drunkard, and show all the symptoms of his drivelling
misery. It was a sad and striking parody on his condition.
The Freedmen’s Association.
This Association, with its working centre in Birmingham, is sending
munificent gifts of clothing to the freedmen in America. It is truly a
noble enterprise, blessing all who take part in it, as well as the beneficaries of such large benevolence. It is fitting that the two great
families of the Anglo-Saxon race should be united in the effort to help
these suddenly emancipated millions through the wilderness they must
cross before they can reach the Canaan of freedom, and enjoy its rights
and privileges. There is a strong determination in the Northern mind
that they shall not fall back into bondage. The most desperate efforts
will be made by the old slaveocracy to reduce them to that condition as
nearly as possible. But the North is on guard to defeat this purpose.
General Howard, at the head of the Freedmen’s Bureau at Washington,
is the very man to watch over the rights and interests of the emanci
pated negroes. The old West Indian combination will be resorted
to by their former masters to fix the tariff of their wages so low that
they shall have as little pecuniary interest in freedom as possible.
But this policy will not be allowed by the government. They are
determined that the freedman’s labour shall be placed on the same
footing as that of the whites, to be paid for, not according to colour but
quality.
The education of the negroes is progressing very favourably, showing
an eagerness on their part to be taught. In the city of New Orleans
there are 200 teachers, 15,000 children in the day schools, and 5,000
adults in the evening schools. Thus a vast number of negroes of both
sexes and all ages are learning to read and write. We hope that if
any qualification be required to entitle them to vote, it will not be
property, but the ability to read. The right of suffrage thus acquired
will be the reward and evidence of merit.
�530
THE BOND OF BROTHERHOOD.
[September1, 1865.
“ Walk from London to Land’s End and Back.”
This volume has been delayed a few weeks in the press, but will probably appear
by the 1st of October, if not before.
Subscriptions to the Gratuitous circulation fund of the “ Bond of Brotherhood :”
P. C., Plymouth.......................... ,........................................ ,......... 10 0
SEPTEMBER, 1865.
The Re-action of Great Wrongs.
We have glanced at the peculiar aggravations of the great wrong
inflicted upon the Negro. We have seen wherein his lot of servitude
and suffering has been embittered beyond the experience of any other
subject class in Christendom. We have noticed how Religion, Science,
Commerce and Political Economy were brought into the general con
spiracy against him, to' degrade his being as well as his condition.
How could he arise under the burden put upon him? With his
oppressors there was pffwer—seemingly all power to press him down
to the dust for ever. What could he do ? What could he say, when
even the one among a million of the ic superior race ” who essayed to
speak for him, a thousand miles from the house of his bondage, was
gagged, mobbed and threatened with the halter ? He had no tongue,
no speech nor power. Never was a lamb led more dumb to the
slaughter than he to the auction-block as a chattel. Could a human
being be more utterly helpless and hopeless ? He is not a shorn or
bound Samson grinding in his prison-house. He never had any
strength of his own. He never saw an hour of free play for his sinews
as a free man. What can he do for himself ? With what or whose
strength shall he break off this bondage and stand upright in the bold
stature of a man among men ?
He shall ‘‘learn to suffer and be strong ’’—stronger than Samson a
thousand-fold. He shall stand still and see the salvation of Grod
wrought in his behalf. He shall show this to the world, that the
mightiest human being on earth is the man who bends under the
greatest wrong. His wrong shall work for him by night and day with
the strength of Grod’s archangels. It shall work right and left. It
shall make the highest places and strongest places of human power
tremble. It shall make a continent quake and smite distant nations
with its retribution. All this has come. It is not a prophecy; it is
the most vivid reality before the world at this moment.
The very science of common schools tries to make children under
stand what physical forces are concealed in little things ;—what a drop
of water, a particle of air, or a grain of powder may be made to do if
�September 1, 1865.]
THE BOND OF BROTHERHOOD.
531
pent up and set in action in a certain way. The moral force of a tear
of sympathy, or of a sigh of convicted conscience is an agency that does
not act with a sudden explosive or expansive power like these elements
of nature. It may seem at first the merest trifle in the world; but it
shall work itself to a strength that shall rive the fabric of a nation and
change the condition of a race. This it has done, and the doing is
marvellous in our eyes. Fifty years ago, the wrong put upon the
Negro had hardly begun to act upon the mind of Christendom. The
moral force that was to rend the structure of his oppression had hardly
as yet worked itself to the measure of a single tear of sympathy in his
behalf. Little by little the public conscience on both sides of the
Atlantic began to show a faint sensibility to his condition. The pent
up force was working. The little drop of sympathy for the Slave
produced small explosions of human nature here and there. The still
small voice in favour of his freedom called out a thousand strong voices
in favour of his bondage. Then the still small voice grew louder and
stronger at every utterance. It would not down. The tempest of
denunciation could not stifle it. The Power that made and moves the
world was in it, small as it was, as in the day of Elijah. Doctors of
Divinity cried “infidelity!” at it from the pulpit. Statesmen cried
“fire!” from the platform. Journalists re-echoed the cry and stirred
up mobs to club down the preachers of the new doctrine. The
merchants on’Change shouted “Great is Diana of the Ephesians!”
The battle was joined at every point of issue between the friends of the
Slave and the abettors of his bondage. The latter threw down the
gauntlet upon the opened Bible and challenged a discussion of the
subject between its leaves. Theologians, Physiologists, Social Econo
mists, Political Philosophers, College Professors and writers of all
grades of talent and position elaborated arguments of every texture to
prove that the Negro was in his right place. Why break up the
foundation of society and seek to set aside the ordinance of Providence,
to overthrow a divine institution, all out of a fanatic and useless
sympathy for him ? Then the Great Wrong began to show its power.
“ There was a dreadful sound in the ears ” of its perpetrators. The
restless pulse of an evil conscience threw up mire and dirt. They and
their abettors grew more and more desperate. South cried to North,
“Stop that voice ! Smite the Abolitionists on the mouth ! Stay this
fanatical agitation! ”
But the voice went on; for it was not the earthquake or the windy
tempest, otherwise it would have ceased. It was not loud, and it was
the breath of a June breeze compared with the voices that essayed to
drown it. It was still and strong, for it was the utterance of the moral
conscience of a constantly increasing host against the iniquity. Per
haps it may become the earthquake in the end. We shall see. The
struggle thickens and widens. The Negro is bending in silence to his
bondage. He hardly hears a distant murmur of the din of the battle
oyer him. His ears are stopped by his master ■ his lips are sealed ;
his hands are bound. Who so helpless and hopeless as he ? Indeed !
What one human being on the face of the earth is so strong ? Who
ever had more voices to plead for him, or hands to work for him, or
�532
THE BOND OF BROTHERHOOD.
[September 1,1865.
hearts to hope for him ? He has learned in silent waiting “ to suffer
and be strong.
How that strength makes the capitol at AVashington
tremble from door stone to dome! How it sways back and forth all
the millions of the nation from ocean to ocean! It moves every politi
cal and ecclesiastical assembly convened in the country. The national
Congress, the State Legislatures, Missionary Societies of every name
and denomination, are stirred to deep emotion by its action on them.
It deepens and widens over the silent Negro. The Continent is cleared
for action; it is cleared of all other questions of discussion. There is
not room for them; they are too small and temporary compared with
the principle involved in the Slave’s condition and rights. The nation
cannot talk of the routine details of political economy, of Bank, Tarifs,
Internal Improvements and the like, over him. He is still and meek,
and makes no movement towards righting himself. He does not even
consciously aid those who are labouring to right him. Ho simply
suffers, quietly and tongueless. But his Great Wrong has come to its
hour. Poor, reviled, oppressed and degraded being, the world has
called him. The world shall now see what his Wrong shall do. It has
come to its hour and to its full strength. The God of the oppressed
has nerved it with the sinews of His omnipotence. How puny were
Samson’s in comparison I It takes hold of the central pillars of a
mighty republic flushed with its growth and greatness. See how the
deep foundations quiver! See how the fabric reels, with all its
treasured histories, hopes and ambitions ! What a crash! What a
crash! What a rending and shivering of goodly timbers and stones
framed and carved by the old and venerated builders of the boasted
temple of freedom!
The Gbeat Whong- came to Judgment.
It spread its retributions with even-handed justice over all who had
participated in the guilt of the oppression, far and near. Every cotton
spindle in Europe felt the benumbing thrill of the shock. The pulse of
the weaver’s beam fell to a weak, slow beat; his shuttle lagged on its
way. Every man, woman and child in Christendom who had touched,
tasted and handled the produce of the Slave’s toil was reached in the
great inquisition. The burden of the judgment was heavy upon distant
nations. At one time it seemed as if the whole of Christendom would
be ignited into a blaze by the flying fire-brands from the burning house
of bondage. Thus the earthquake was in the still small voice. If the
Almighty ever walked over the world in a still small voice, He did in
that. Vox populi vox Dei. That was an axiom of the heathen world.
How much truer it is in this ! The voice of the people does not mean
a temporary and impulsive utterance, a sudden explosion of a fitful
thought or temper. It means the steadily-growing conscience, a deep,
earnest, active sentiment which grows to an irresistible power, mighty
through God to the pulling down of the strongest hold that Satan
can build on earth. The heathen maxim falls far short of the truth.
This public sentiment is not only the voice but the right arm of
Omnipotence among men. He works through no other agency in
overthrowing the great iniquities of the world. Before it Slavery falls
with the crash of a tremendous ruin. All the cupidities and sophistries,
�September 1,1865.]
THE BOND OF BROTHERHOOD.
533
all the stays and girders of Scriptural argument, all the beams and
Ibuttresses of Science, bribed by self-interest or prejudice, that were
(brought to compact and strengthen the great structure of oppression,
are flying hither and thither like straws on the wind. Before it War’s
turn to fall shall come in like manner. Before it the Great Red Curse
shall be drummed out of the world, as a disgrace to the ranks of
Humanity. Its butchering-irons shall rust in one everlasting grave'
with the broken fetters of Slavery; and the leech shall no more slake
its thirst at the veins of the human race.
Before it Intemperance, with its wider reign of moral ruin, shall beat
a retreat and call off its marauding furies, to prey no more upon the
homes of mankind.
Before it, Oppression, Idolatry, Superstition, and every other great
Organism of Sin or Ignorance, shall fall one by one. For the tide and
the strength of this mighty sentiment are arising. It gathers force
from every new grapple with Moral Evil.
We have dwelt upon the retributive re-action of Great Wrongs,—
upon the sure and inevitable judgment they bring upon their perpe
trators and abettors, punishing them in every interest they thought to
advance by their iniquity. In fact, we have confined our remarks
chiefly to the penal department of their issues. We have not yet
considered their Moral Mission proper. This we may make the subject
of another article.
E. B. -v
A Relic of Slavery.
■*
The Tower of London has its block of bloody history, on which many
a noble neck was severed by the axe. The Museum of the Natural
History Society, Boston, has recently had a block added to its relics
which in times coming may be looked at with the same feeling. It is
the Charleston auction-block, on which thousands of slaves have been
knocked down to new masters under the hammer. At the capture of
that southern city—the very seat and citadel of slavery—this block was
found at the deserted shambles, and conveyed to Boston. It was placed
for public view in the great Music Hall, and a meeting was held to
celebrate the triumph. When William Lloyd Garrison entered the hall,
and stood upon the block to address the audience, a scene ensued of
thrilling interest. Many were present who could remember when he
faced such persecution and obloquy in Boston as no other American ever
confronted, in his attempts to plead for the slave. Some may have
remembered the very words of that impassioned utterance in face of a
tempest of opposition: “lam in earnest, and will be heard!” He was
heard, and here he was at last, standing upon the central auction-block of
the South, a relic of the system against which he had laboured with such
heart and hope from his youth up. The whole assembly arose to their
feet and greeted him with a reception worthy of the man and of the
occasion. Charles Sumner, also, and other old champions of freedom
spoke from the same platform.
<
E. B.
�584
THE BOND OF BROTHERHOOD.
[September 1,1865.
The Victory of Defeat.
No defeat of the two great allies, Science and Art, ever carried away
so many of the best laurels of victory as the breakage of the electric
bond that was to connect the two hemispheres. It was a grand dis
comfiture, which brought out such latent and invincible energies or
human faith, hope, and courage on one hand, and such resources of
hitherto unfathomed science and art on the other, as a complete victory
could never have revealed to the world. All hail, say we, to that
sublime defeat, with its heroic antecedents and glorious subsequents !
It was grievous to the athletes of Anglo-Saxon pluck, who wrestled
with the elements of misfortune. It was a sore and heavy battle for
them. Never men before stood the strain of such a struggle. Tennyson
ought to celebrate it in verse of as lasting a memory as the Atlantic
itself. It would be a grander subject for his genius than the “ Charge
of the Six Hundred” at Balaclava. England and -America should pass
a joint resolution of thanks to the heroes, that they did not despair of
the cable when it fell back into its mid-ocean bed the last time, and
all their fishing lines and rods were broken. It was a loss heavy to be
borne by the stockholders: but who else would sell that experience
out of the history of the world for a million sterling ! The morale itself
is worth to mankind the value of a hundred of those ostentatious events
generally called victories. But the science that unmasked, in the battle
with the ocean, ingenuities that startle the imagination with their
subtlety and power will have for-ever a working value among men “that
cannot be meted out in words nor weighed with language.” Jason and
his companions did something in their day with a vessel which may
have been called a “ Great Eastern ” by the multitude. How small
its exploits, with all the help of the heathen gods to boot, compared
with the mighty sea-walker that trailed this electric cable across the
ocean’s bed to almost within sight of the other shore! If the victory
had been complete, if no little iron bodkin, no headless pin, concealed
in the coating of the lightning-courser, had pierced the cuticle and
punctured the vital vein, how small would have been the success,
brilliant as it would have been, compared with the results won for the
world in this actual issue of the expedition ? Who can measure, from
the standpoint of the present hour, those results, either in number or
importance ? Hundreds of hardy enterprises the world would not else
have thought of may grow out of one of the consequences of the great
experiment. Science, in the sublime crisis, changed its base. To use
the subtle phrase of a distinguished politician, it extended its forces
“ vertically" as well as laterally and magnificently in both directions,
which was a great improvement on his axiom. The Great Eastern did
not go out with any such idea in its head or at its stern; and if the
cable had not parted, the banks of Newfoundland would not have become
the grounds of a fishery never before dreamed of. The vast ship,
sidling backward and forward like a stealthy angler, trailing hook and
line to catch with its barbs a small electric eel buried in the mud at
the depth of two miles and more, and raising the slimy reptile half way
to the surface at the first trial—this is a picture, this is a power, worthy
�SeptemBCTisss.]
THE BOND OF BROTHERHOOD.
535
painter’s pencil and the poet’s pen. It is no fault of science that
the line broke once, twice, or thrice, and the hook went to the bottom
of the deep sea, with the heavy reptile in its clasp. Art will “ cut and
try” again. Art will make tackle that will fish up from the depths of
ocean heavier things than electric cables. Who can tell where and
■ft what this “ vertical extension of the suffrage” of science will end ?
What new fisheries will be opened, what hooks will be barbed and
baited for broken ships, and for treasure buried in seas never fathomed
before ? How Science will walk the ocean wild and wide, and trail her
dark lanterns along its undulating floor, peering into its caverned
mysteries, and exploring all its hidden biocracies ?
Then, putting aside these grander results of the defeat, it was worth
the breakage that the men of the Great Eastern were able to stick a
pin right over the place where the splintered end of the cable went
down—a pin with a great hollow head to it, called a buoy, and then to
sail all the way back to England with a good heart in them, believing
that, when fitted out with stronger hook and line, they would tread out
westward again and find that pin’s head among the rolling seas and
dank fogs, just where they left it. To do such a thing is a mighty feat
of science and art. To believe it may be done, and to make that belief
take hold of the hearts of common sailors and nerve them for a new
trial, this has its morale of great value to the age in which we live.
With these views, we repeat, all hail to the sublime defeat I The
genius of Old Ocean might say with Pyrrhus over a partial triumph ;
“ One more such a victory and I am lost.”
E. B.
“Wayside Warbles.”
By the Bideford Postman Poet.
We wish all our readers would read this volume of poems by Edward
Capern, the Bideford Postman Poet. He is the Robert Burns of
Devonshire, and we think some of his verses will equal anything the
Scotch bard ever wrote in the way of touching pathos and beauty. No
equal space in Ayrshire has been set to more joyous music of a poet’s soul
than the postal beat of Edward Capern. It extends six miles out from
Bideford to a small rural village called Buckland Brewer. This he
-has walked for many years, and he walks it now with his letter-bags.
And while he walks, he “ warbles by the wayside ” about everything he
sees—lads and lassies, flowers, birds and bees, and trees, and brooks, and
barn-yards, mills and rills. He gives them the pulse and voice of life,
and sets them a singing for very joy. While waiting for his little mail
in the village on the hill, he writes out these musings by the way;
sometimes carrying home with him two or three songs on different
subjects. On our recent “ Walk from London to Land’s End and Back,”
ye spent several days with him, and accompanied him on his postal
beat, and sat by him at the cottage table in. the village, on which he
Bias penned most of his poems, and saw many of the subjects of his
song. His muse is naturally as joyous as the lark’s, and sings as
spontaneously. A rich, rollicking happiness wells up in his verse on
bird, bee, brook or flower. The two concluding verses of “My Excuse”
explain his predilection for the scene and subjects of his singing:
�536
THE BOND OE BROTHERHOOD.
The lonely bird that wakes the night
Down in the dingle-bushes,
Ne’er imitates the skylark’s note,
Nor warble of the thrushes.
The linnets, too, have their own song,
The happy little darlings !
And next the oratorio
Loud chanted by the starlings.
*
«"
[September 1, 1865.
'
The storm-cock braves the wintry blast,
In his bold lay delighting,
And sings, like me, the loudest oft
When winds are cold and biting.
Each has its own delicious way
In trilling Nature’s praises ;
And I have mine, which sweetest sounds
Among my native daisies.
Up to a recent date all his verse was as mirthful as the laughter of a
meadow brook. It fairly bubbled over with a glory of gladness. But
suddenly a great and almost crushing sorrow fell down upon his spirit.
His only darling daughter “ Milly ” was taken away. “ Under the
shadow of this afifetion. his soul sat dumb ” for a season. Then his
muse began to J^reathe a strain never heard before. In a part of the
volume entitled (i Willow Leaves,” several poems touching on this
grief are given, which, to our mind, are as full of the mournful beauty
of sorrow as Burns ever put into verse. We subjoin one of these,
headed “ The Two Minstrels,” mostly for the two last stanzas :
THE TWO MINSTRELS.
Now while hedgerows, high and swelling,
All with clover sweetly smelling
In the new made hay;
,
Where the golden sunbeams shimmer
Through'the leafy lanes of “ summer,”
Drowsy with the heat and glimmer,
I betake my way.
List! is that the skylark soaring ?
What a passionate outpouring
Of his love and joy!
Hark! how loud his notes are trilling,
AU my soul with rapture filling !
So sang I with soul as willing,
When I was a boy.
See, along the plains of Heaven,
Mimicking the ’fields of Devon,
Snow white swaths are seen:
“ Hear me, unseen meader there,
With thy scythe so keen and bare,
Mowing down its lilies fair,
Lacking meadows green!
�September 1, 1865.]
THE BOND OF BROTHERHOOD.
537
Have you not a saintly stranger,
Freed from sorrow, death and danger,
Like a ray of light,
Fairer than your snowy showers,
. Visiting your pleasant bowers,
Gathering celestial flowers,
Like your blossoms white ? ”
If so, ’tis my maiden Milly,
And, I pray thee, tell that lily,
In the fields of God,
Tuneful, from this desert springing
Oft I fly, the bright air winging,
But, lark like, I cease my singing
When I touch the sod.”
The African BoyWhen Jesus came on the earth, he brought man a golden rule with him. He said,
“Do unto others as ye would that they should do unto you.” “ Overcome evil with
good,” and many other beautiful truths were brought and left on record for our
lasting benefit. Our Saviour acted on the law of kindness. He never spoke an
unkind word. “ When He was reviled, He reviled not again; when He suffered,
He threatened not.” His was indeed a bright example for all, for the young and
the old, the rich and the poor. How thankful then ought we to be, that we can
enjoy this blessed book, the Bible, undisturbed and at so cheap a price ! Some dark
countries have not yet enjoyed the light of the Gospel. How then can we be sur
prised if they give way to naughty passions, and are cruel and harsh to one another?
How different is your lot from theirs! and how different should your conduct be !
Compare your situation with that of the poor African,—the poor black negro! They
have a heart and a soul as you have ; there is feeling under the black skin as well
as under the white. The same Great King who made you—made them! Whyshould you have more advantages than they ? But so it is. Prize your high privi
leges, and pray for the poor negroes. Oh, you do not know, dear children, how
thankful, how delighted these poor creatures are when good white men carry the
blessed truths to them; and it was but the other day that I heard two gospel
ministers speaking of poor benighted Africa, where they have lately been travelling.
They said they had preached in many large assemblies, and seen many eyes bathed
in tears,—all anxious to hear of their dear Saviour. No doubt their kind words and
the blessed gospel that they preached touched the hearts of the poor blacks. Perhaps
many had never heard of Christ before. One little circumstance I must mention
that they related. A little boy about nine years of age, went out to service. His
mistress was a kind, pious woman. After a short time he became dull, spoke little,
and seemed as if a dark cloud was passing over his once bright mind. The lady
asked him what was the matter. “Oh!” said he, “my heart rough: my heart
bad; me no love Jesus! ” She encouraged him with kind words, and told him where
to look for help and comfort. A few days more passed, and again he seemed the
same happy creature. Upon his mistress inquiring as to the change, “ My heart
smooth; my heart smooth ; me love Jesus ! ” This is a simple little story, but one
of great interest. If ever you meet with poor negroes, treat them kindly; do not
laugh at them, as some wicked children do, because they differ from you. Try to
win them to Christ, and again I say, pray for them !
Lousia A.
�'
538
THE BOND OF BROTHERHOOD.
ond of-brotherhood,vol. xv.,
B
for 1864, bound in wrappers, imitation cloth;
price One Shilling and Fourpence, Post-free.
Job Caudwell, 335, Strand, London, W.C.
[September 1, 1865,
3s. per Annum post free.
THE HERALD OF PEACE.
Official
1 Organ of the Peace Society. 19, New BroadStreet, London.
Important Notice to Purchasers of Books.
Cheap Edition.
NY BQOK sent free on receipt of the THE SOCIETY OF FRIENDS: Its
published price in stamps or Post-office
orders on the Strand Office, by Job Caudwell,
335, Strand, London, W.C.
GRIND YOUR OWN FLOUR!
N consequence of the great adulteration
of Flour and the poisonous compounds in
Bread, Job Caudwell, has manufactured some
STEEL FAMILY MILLS, to stand on a table
or fasten to a post, which, for cheapness, dura
bility, and execution, cannot be equalled.
Post
Stand
Mill.
Mill.
£ s. d. £ s. d.
No. 1 will grind lflbs. per hour 1 8 0 - 1 10 0
do. -1 15 0 - 1 18 0
13
No. 2
do.
do. - 2 0 0 - 2 6 0
16
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do.
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36
do. - 4 0 0 - 5 10 0
do.
No. 6
Sieves, coarse or due, 4s. each.
Independent of the great benefit derived from
having pum bread, the economy effected will
soon repay the outlay. Wheat at 6s. per bushel
yields bread at 4|d. the 4-lb. loaf. See “Our
Daily Bread,” price 2d. P. O. Orders on the
Strand Office, in favor of Job Caudwell, 335,
Strand, W.C.
URTON’S UNFERMENTED WINE,
B
made from the juice of the finest Grapes,
is the best element for the Lord’s Table.
has been analysed and pronounced perfectly
free from Alcohol by Dr. Arthur Hill Hassall,
Dr. J. M. Davison,University College, T. A. Smith,
Esq., Lecturer on Chemistry, and other eminentmen, and is strongly recommended by the Revs.
Dr. Jabez Burns, Ebenezer Davies, Dawson
Burns, Isaac Doxsey, &c., &c.—Price, 2s. 6d. per
bottle; 24s. per dozen; Half-bottles, Is. 6d. each,
or 14s. per dozen.—Post-Office Orders to be made
payable at the Strand Office.
Job Caudwell, 335, Strand, London, W.C.
Third Edition, One Penny.
GETARIAN COOKERY for the
Million; containing what to eat, and how
to prepare it, with instructions and Recipes for
One Hundred and Sixty different Dishes, suitable
for families, bachelors, invalids, children, &c.,
showing the best, cheapest, and happiest mode
of living. By Job Caudwell, F.R.S.L. “Live
not to Eat, but Eat to Live.”
Job Caudwell, 335, Strand, London, W.C.
OB
J
CAUDWELL’S
HOMEO
-L Strength and its Weakness. By Edmuwd
Fey, Price 6d. post free.
London : Job Oaudwell, 335, Strand.
Fifteenth Thousand.
HY I HAVE TAKEN THE
W
PLEDGE ; or an Apology for Total Absti.
nence and the Permissive Maine Law. By the
Very Rev. Francis Close, D.D., Dean of Carlisle.
Price 3d. Two copies post-free for 6d.
London : Job Caudwell, 335, Strand, W.C.
Temperance
champagne.
Unfermented and entirely free from Spirit;
also Soda Water, Lemonade, Tonic Water
(Quinine), Ginger Beer, Soyer’s Nectar, Potash
Water and Seltzer Water.—CHAS. E. CODD
AND CO., 112, High Holborn, London.—Pricelists on application. Country orders must be
accompanied by Post-office Order, or a London
Reference.
Monthly, Eight pp. Super Royal Quarto,
Beautifully Illustrated. Now Ready, No. 16,
Price One Penny, the
British workwoman out and
AT HOME. “A woman that feareth the
Lord, she shall be praised. Give her out of the
fruit of her hands, and let her works praise her.”
Proverbs xxi., 30-31.
Communications for the Editor can be sent to
Office of “British Workwoman,” 335, Strand,
London. W.C.
It
*** A Specimen Number sent to any address
on receipt of two postage stamps. Four
Copies, post free, for four stamps. London:
Job Caudwell, 335, Strand, W.C.
Temperance
spectator,
Temperance
star, Weekly,
Monthly, Twopence, post free, Threepence,
is an Independent Journal, advocating TotalAbstinence from intoxicating drinks and Prohi
bition of the Liquor Traffic. Contributions from
the best authors enrich its pages from time
to time, exhibiting the complete' harmony of
Teetotalism and Prohibition with the teachings
of Scripture, Science, and Experience. The
TEMPERANCE SPECTATOR is the recognised
monthly of the Teetotal and Prohibition world,
and consequently the best medium for adver
tisers. Three copies post free for Sixpence.
Vol I., II., m., IV., V. and VI., cloth, 3s. each.
Job Caudwell, 335, Strand, London, W.C.
One Halfpenny, 8 copies, post free for
Fourpence; Monthly parts, Threepence; contains
with other revised arrangements,Leading Articles
by sound and competent writers—Temperance
and Maine Law news, Metropolitan and Pro
vincial—Correspondence — Poetry—Selections of
Peculiar Merit, &o. The TEMPERANCE STAR
denounces Alcohol as a poison, and demands
the suppression of the traffic, as opposed to the
Truths of the Bible, the Facts of Science, and the
Interests'of Humanity. The TEMPERANCE
STAR has a larger circulation than any Temper
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best and cheapest medium for Advertising.
Job Caudwell 335, Strand, London, W. 0.,
and all Booksellers.
PATHIC COCOA, quite pure, and free
from meal, starch, ground rice, &c. This
Cocoa is suitable for persons in health, for
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this Cocoa derives a peculiar advantage over
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elain of the oil (the part used as lamp oil)
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The margarine (the most essential part of
the oil) is left, which makes the Cocoa soluble
NOTICE TO ADVERTISERS.—AU Advertise
and prevents its turning sour on the most ments must be sent to Job Caudwbll, 335,
delicate stomach. In half-pound and one-pound Strand, London, on or before the 24th of the
month.
tin-foil packets, at Is. 8d. per pound.
Robinson and Waitt, Printers, 6a, Dowgate Hill, Cannon Street, E.C.
�
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Victorian Blogging
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A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
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2018
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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Bond of Brotherhood Conducted by Elihu Burritt. Vol. XVI, No. 182, September 1865
Creator
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League of Universal Brotherhood
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Place of publication: London
Collation: [523]-538 p. ; 23 cm.
Notes: Also known as Elihu Burritt's Bond of Brotherhood. Contents include: L'Entente Cordiale -- The inefficiency of capital punishment -- A relic of slavery. Elihu Burritt was a temperance and anti-slavery activist. At top of title page: Registered for Transmission Abroad. From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. Printed by Robinson and Waitt, Cannon Street, London.
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Job Caudwell; Simpkin, Marshall & Co.
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[1865]
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G5386
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Pacifism
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Burritt, Elihu [1810-1879] (ed)
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<img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /><br />This work (Bond of Brotherhood Conducted by Elihu Burritt. Vol. XVI, No. 182, September 1865), identified by Humanist Library and Archives, is free of known copyright restrictions.
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English
Conway Tracts
Peace
Slavery
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Text
THE
Liberal Situation:
NECESSITY FOR
A Qualified Franchise
A LETTER TO JOSEPH COWEN, Jun.
By G. J. Holyoake.
No MEASURE [OF REFORM] CAN BE CONSIDERED WORTHY OF ACCEPTANCE,
UNLESS IT AFFORDS A REASONABLE PROSPECT OF AFFECTING A
SETTLEMENT
OF THE •QUESTION.
Parliamentary Government, by Earl Grey.
[REPRINTED FROM THE “NEWCASTLE WEEKLY CHRONICLE.”]
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�"The Liberal Situation.
-------- 0-------TO JOSEPH COWEN, Jun., STELLA HOUSE,
BLAYDON-ON-TYNE.
My Dear Sir,—I address this letter to you, because
since the days of Thomas Attwood (if you will permit me
to say so) no English gentleman (great as have been the
services of many) has taken the same personal, practical,
and persevering interest in the Political elevation of the
people at home and abroad, as yourself. Representatives
of the Northern Reform Union, under your Presidency,
visited the towns, villages, and hamlets in the two
counties of Northumberland and Durham, and explained to
the people the duty devolving upon them, of claiming, and
never ceasing to claim, “universal” suffrage; and incul
cating the sound doctrine of Major Cartwright—“that to
be free is to be governed by laws to which we have our
selves assented, either in person or by representatives for
whose election we have actually voted; that all not having
a right of suffrage are slaves, and that a vast majority of
the people of Great Britain are slaves.” This is the true doc
trine of the franchise question, and there will be no further
reform until the working classes feel this and act upon
it. If the working class are slaves through ignorance, let
it be corrected—if slaves through coercion, let it be resented
—if slaves through apathy, let it be terminated by those
who know better, and who should inspire the people
with self-respect. Indifference to political rights is
indifference to public duty, and is an infamy equally in
those who betray this indifference and in those who
connive at it. The reform question is again being re
opened. Manchester is trying to do something and Brad
ford more. But the agitation has neither the compass nor
as yet the courage in it necessary for great success. No
Parliamentary party brings up the people to the front. Re
formers act as though they were scared, and the claims of
a twelfth part of the unenfranchised are all that any leader
�4
The Liberal Situation.
has ventured to press upon the notice of Parliament Thia
^
*
shows a dangerous timidity. An honorary member of the
Northern Reform Union, I have also had the satisfaction
to represent it at several Conferences, may I therefore call
attention to the desirability and possibility of realising our
old Cartwright doctrine which gave to this Union all its
value ?
Recently, in the columns of the Times, Mr. Buxton, M.P.,
stated the “Liberal Dilemma.” There is a “dilemma,”
and the way out of it is to look the Liberal situation
plainly in the face.
Soon after the Reform Bill of 1832 was passed, there appear
ed on the walls of Birmingham a placard, put out by Cobbett,
the purport of which was that the Reform Bill merely gave
power to those who could help themselves, and still ex
cluded the mass who could not. He told us that the word
REFORM meant no more to the people than any other
six letters. The Bill would give them some new masters,
but any actual power had still to be won. I remember
well the consternation and disgust with which the working
class members of the Birmingham Political Union, of which
I was one, read Cobbett’s placard. We hated him as the
poor Brahmins did the European philosopher when he
handed them a microscope, with which to see the insects in
their food; but every year since the working class have
seen, with the clearness of dismay, the truth of what Cob
bett said.
Earl Russell and Mr. Bright are the best regarded authors
of Reform Bills. Neither has proposed other than to
tread in the political footsteps of Thomas Attwood. I
say nothing against Mr. Bright’s Bill—I rather serve it
by describing it as giving us 200,000 new masters—a
democratic advantage, yet affording protection only to
those who have some means, and leaving politically defence
less those who have none. The speakers at the late Brad
ford meeting —Mr. Stansfeld, Sir F. Crossley, Mr. Baines,
and Mr. Forster—pleaded for no more (Mr. Stansfeld alone
gave advice which would secure more) than the partial en
franchisement plan—a policy which palters with the
popular hope—which fears to look the right in the face—
which offers the least measure that can be called an im
provement—settles nothing, and perpetuates the old dis
appointment. Reformers on principle, who hold that the
whole people are entitled to a share of control over what
ever affects the national interest or English renown, would
acquiesce even in a partial measure, though it should add
but a single voter in a century. But about these partial
�The Liberal Situation.
5
plans, which contemplate to admit the few and exclude
the many, there need be no alarm on the part of Tories or
Whigs, and there will never be any enthusiasm on the part
of the people.
The character of the working class has changed since
this Reform question was agitated in 1830. The demand
for the suffrage now is not alone a question of grievance, it
is also one of degradation. The character of English
statesmanship, the magnitude of our commerce, the wealth
of our manufactures, the renown of our arms, are matters
'understood now by the common people, The Press carries
information into every hut and workshop in the land;
and the labourer and the artisan find themselves well used
instruments without political recognition—they are no
longer to be imposed upon by specious representations;
they find themselves virtually a slave class with a longer
chain than is commonly permitted, but the end made fast
and kept secure nevertheless. They are patted with praise
by noble lords and condescending gentlemen at Mechanics’
Institution soirees, and elsewhere, but they are never—
trusted. When driven abroad to seek for bread, the
English working man finds himself lowered in the eyes of
the two nations—France and America—before whom he
inherits the wish to stand with pride. It is nothing to tell
him that in both these nations the franchise is abused®-were
that true. He is a slave who has no privilege to abuse. The
man who like the French elector has had freedom and voted
it away, has a higher place than he who never even had that
chance. The English workman is contumeliously kept in
political inferiority as being something less in the eyes of
Parliament than a Frenchman or an American. No
English pride is taught to him, no sentiment of nationality
is appealed to, no instinct of his race is trusted. He stands
degraded abroad who is allowed no responsibility at home.
There may be no howling at this exclusion, no riots, no
sedition, but there ought to be an incurable resentment
diffuse itself, like that which appeared for the first time
when Lord Palmerston lately visited Bradford. As the
Indian proverb says—even in that submissive land of the
sun—“the dart of contempt will pierce even through the
shell of the tortoise. ”
I adhere to Major Cartwright’s dictum, a non-elector is a
slave, and I hate to see a slave beside me. If he is a slave
by political exclusion and does not resent it— if he is a
slave by consent and does not feel degraded I equally de
spise him. And, as intelligence spreads, this feeling will
spread, and the non-elector will be an object of pity or
�6
The Liberal Situation.
contempt—of pity if he does not know his duty—of con
tempt if he does know it, and does not wish to discharge it.
The author of a warning pamphlet entitled “Look be
fore you Leap,” and who is a master in the art of stating
Conservative principles, reminds the working classes ‘ ‘ that
their very numbers secure them respect and attention from
the conscience as well as the benevolence of the classes
above them.” This is the new fraternal doctrine which
the Tories have taught, the Whigs have caught, and the
Radicals are learning. It treats the non-electors like chil
dren, who, so long as they stand on their good behaviour,
may expect to have something done for them. The middle
class would be despised if they were to submit to political
inferiority and trust to the “conscience and benevolence” of
the aristocracy fortheir welfare, and the non-electors will de
serve to be despised if they continue to submit to it. These
new Political Paternalists say to the people—“ You are wellfed, you have comfortable homes, you have plenty of work,
you have sufficient wages, you could not do better for
yourselves.” Why, if this were all true, it is no more than
the farmer might say to his pig, or the gentleman to his
horse, or the planter to his slave. Our new Paternalists,
whose self-complacency is limitless, assure the non-electors
that they are very well represented by the present very
nice, liberal, considerate, good-natured, studious, patient,
condescending gentlemen, lawyers, bankers, colonels,
country ’squires, and noble lords who bestow upon the
country the inestimable benefit of sitting in Parliament.
There is one short, not to say contemptuous answer to all
this. Every one knows that the middle class who cla
moured for the Reform Bill in 1832 until they got it, were
just as well represented by the Boroughmongers of that
day as the working classes are by the Parliament of this
day. Why were not the middle classes satisfied then ?
They had quite as good “ indirect.' representation as middle
class members afford the unenfranchised people now,
besides that valuable hold which they had upon the
“ conscience and benevolence of the classes above them.”
What were the middle class of 1832 better than the work
ing class of 1865 ? Instead of being better, they were
inferior. They were more ignorant, more vulgar, more
noisy, and ten times more seditious. But they had one
virtue, now growing scarce in England—for which they are
to be honoured; and that was, they were too manly and
too proud to be represented on sufferance. They had too
much sense to be imposed upon, and too much spirit to
submit to the irritating and humiliating device of indirect
�The Liberal Situation.
7
representation. Their cry was “we are as much men as
any other class and. we claim and intend to be treated as
Equals. "We are not going to be protected as an act of
political condescension. We can, and will do that busi
ness for ourselves. We want no patronage. We, as well
as others, pay for the State, we do our share of fighting
for the State, and we will have our share in controlling it.”
This was the right thing to say, and the right tone to take
—and it told. These middle class men got what they
wanted, they have had their turn served, and they have
served themselves well. They have got power, wealth,
and university education for their sons, who are turning
out promising students of literary and Parliamentary con.
temptuousness. They turn now upon the people, and
treat the unenfranchised with the same impertinent
patronage which their fathers, a generation ago, so
scornfully and so honourably rejected when they were
subjected to it. There needs now no seditious sug
gestion, no revolutionary action ; it only needs that the
people be taught to imitate their new “ superiors.” Let
the working class show as much pluck, as much sense, and
as much resolution as the middle have done, and they may
become as influential and as much respected by those who
rule, as the middle class now are.
It is strange to have to own that the chief politician who
has seriously proposed to obviate the difficulty and dis
credit of partial representation, is an Earh Earl Grey’s
plan, so far as relates to the establishment of Guilds, enabling
the working classes to elect a certain number of their own
representatives, would undoubtedly meet a defined want.
The people seek no absolute transfer of power to them
selves ; they merely ask for such share as shall enable
them to send to the House of Commons some representa
tives of their own feelings, interests, and ideas. There are
now many gentlemen in Parliament who really sympathise
with the people, and are perhaps wiser, abler representa
tives of the working classes than they would be able to elect
for themselves. But this does not meet the case. These
members are not the servants of the people. There is not
a single member in the House who owes his seat to work
ing class electors, and his vote and influence are—whatever
he may wish—at the command of those who sent him there.
A gentleman who, instead of engaging servants, should con
descend, or be under the necessity of accepting volunteers,
could give them no orders, exact no obedience, and must
put up with their absence when he most needed them.
Such is the nature of that “indirect” representation which
�8
The Liberal Situation.
the working class seek to supersede now, as the middle class
superseded it in 1832.
Let any one watch what takes place when the
sitting member grants a political interview. When
an M.P. receives a deputation of electors they meet
as equals. The electors comport themselves as men
having a right to an audience. When non-electors go up
they are received as an act of condescension, or if received
with frank respect, they retire with demonstrations of
gratitude which mark the measure of their political in
feriority. Should Earl Grey’s plan prevail, there would be
an end of this humiliation, and his plan of election would
disturb no balance of interests in any borough nor would
its results monopolise any power nor swamp the educated
classes of the nation.
Mr. Buxton, M.P., brings forward a plan in accordance
with Mr. Mill’s suggestion of enfranchising the working
class, and guarding against their preponderance by giving a
plurality of votes to other classes. * There is no valid ob
jection to this plan. It already works well in every com
bination in which property is at stake. It is perhaps less
easy of adoption than Lord Grey’s plan, but has the equal
merit of covering the entire ground of political disability.
Its sole difficulty lies in the adjustment of votes. At pre
sent the polling result in any borough is pretty nearly a
known quantity. Every elector is ticketed and docketed ;
his quality and price are known to the local parliamentary
agents. Mr. Buxton’s plan might disturb these hopeful
calculations. These electoral astrologers who make up our
Parliamentary almanac will make frantic resistance to
having their stars displaced, and their political nativities
complicated.
Self respect can never be a national characteristic with
out national enfranchisement. Viewed in this light the
plans of Lord Grey and Mr. Buxton are not without merit
compared with the “ partial enfranchisement” advocated
at the Bradford meeting. No partial enfranchisement can
produce direct political improvement unless large enough
to effect a substantial transfer of power, and this the ex
perience of the last thirty years shows cannot be effected
without menacing a revolution. There is no political com
bination among the people able to do this, and politicians
know this very well, yet treat with derision both Lord
Grey’s and Mr. Buxton’s plans. Lord Grey’s does not suit
* Vide Thoughts on Parliamentary Reform.
Mill.
By John Stuart
�1 he Liberal Situation.
g
them ; it would create a class distinction, although we have
notoriously nothing but class distinctions in the country.
We have more castes in England than in India, and more
sharply and inexorably defined. The politicians who raise
the new cry against class distinction are they who acquiesce
in enfranchising only a limited portion of the people, thus
perpetuating, indefinitely, the bitterest, hatefulest, and
most degrading of all class distinctions—that of a small
class with votes and a vast class without. It is only your
practical politician who shudders at a nominal distinction
and keeps up a real one. Nor does Mr. Buxton’s plan suit
them. Against this they revive a very old objection, viz.^
that it is better to have no vote than a proportional one—
which all the thinking Chartists have long had the good
sense to abandon. Every sensible mechanic knows that it
is better to have one-third or one-fifth of the voting power
of your neighbour than to have none at alL Let us hope
that the Reform Company (Limited) who advocate partial
enfranchisement and object to a proportional vote, will find
that the working classes are no longer in love with the in
sane dignity of utter impotence, or do not know the nature
of that affected unity which awards the greater part of
them entire and contemptuous seclusion.
It is not an insult to offer a man a portion of power when
the offer of it comes from members of a class who with#'
hold all. But if the offer of a part be an insult, it is amuch greater insult to offer none: and those who advise
the working man to reject as an insult the offer of a part,
should tell him, and encourage him, support him, and de
fend him, in treating as an insult his entire exclusion. If
they will do this, I could admire both their policy and
their consistency. But the advisers who say reject a part
of a vote actually go to Parliament to ask only for a par
tial admission of the people to power, and profess them
selves willing to accept a mere instalment of the entire
claim, which will postpone again for 30 years longer (for
that is the English duration of a political makeshift) the
consideration of a settlement.
Is not the obj ection to graduatedvotes made in ignorance of
the principles of Democracy? “The power which the
suffrage gives,” as Mr. Mill observes, “is W over the
elector himself alone ; it is power over others also. Now it
can in no sort be admitted that all persons have an equal
claim to power over others. There is no such thing in
morals as a right to power over others, and the electoral
suffrage is that power.” This power, therefore, when
given to all must be graduated. He is not a democrat, but
�IO
The Liberal Situation.
an anarchist, who insists that the vote of the most ignorant
shall count for as much as that of the most highly educa
ted class in the community.
Mr. Mill’s plan of graduated votes would be regulated by
a principle of plain reason and political fairness, and those
who object to the plan evidently forget that we have al
ways had it in operation in a state of pernicious inequality.
An elector of Thetford has thirty-two times the power of
voting of an elector in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, and is equal
to 64 electors in Birmingham. An elector of Portarlington
has 289 votes more than an elector of the Tower Hamlets. *
Earl Russell, therefore, who regards a plurality of votes as an
insult, must own that we have the “ insult” already in its
offensive form, and have always had it as a u constitutional”
thing. It is surely not an act of legislatorial wisdom to
condemn as an alien proposal a plan for rationalising an
ancient arrangement.
Taken as a rider to a Reform Bill, which amended the
distribution of seats (a point never to be lost sight of) and
increased the number of electors, one of Earl Grey’s pro
posals furnishes another solution of the Reform question.
It is feasible to create an Electoral Guild, and register all
the unenfranchised having a fixed residence and permit
them to elect a limited number of members. The Spectator,
in 1861, said that “forty members such as the working
class would elect, would be a great deal less obnoxious than
forty members nominated by Archbishop Cullen.”*
)
Why could not a Guild of Supplementary Electors
be an addition to the next Reform Bill ? Suppose the
suffrage to be fixed at £6; it might be provided that
whenever a guild elector shall become an occupier of a £6
house, that he be forthwith withdrawn and included in the
National Constituency, and so on with each until in course
of years the Supplementary constituency be extinguished.
Suoh a plan would avoid the discredit of leaving five mil
lions of the working classes entirely unrepresented; it
* Vide the Imperial Poll Book 1832-1864, by Jas. Acland.
t Indeed the “Spectator” of Nov. 23, 1861, remarked in the
same article that “ It has been said that it is impossible to secure
a suffrage which would give the numerical majority their fair
share of power while leaving theirs to the cultivated minority,
but if the working men accepted the compromise, it might be
secured to-morrow.” I know not on what authority the “ Spec
tator” made the statement I had, however, already, at the re
quest of an eminent practical politician, personally ascertained of
the principal political leaders of working men of England and
Scotland that their acquiescence could be counted upon, the only
doubt expressed being whether Parliament could be relied upon
for anything. I communioated this result to the “Spectator”
in 1861, subsequent to its statement appearing.
�The Liberal Situation,
II
would in the meantime provide for the direct representation
of Industry; it would enable Labour to be heard in its
own name in the House of Commons, and avoid what the
governing classes fear and nobody desires—a transfer of
power from the intelligent minority to the numerical many.
Democracy is, we know, in the eyes of the governing
class, a Frankenstein kind of product. They think it a
possible monster, wilful, irresistible, with a ravaging in
tellect, and devoid of all sense of moral or political respon
sibility, and they fear to breathe into it the breath of life.
It is no answer to them to say they are wrong, that their
fears are futile, that they ignore the established habits,
good sense, and almost perilous docility of the English
people. These fears are strong upon the governing classes.
Like cattle who smell blood on the threshhold of the
slaughter-house, those who have the upper hand have
morbid noses, and smell “ Sheffield outrages” and ^Ameri
can Democracy” in every Reform Bill, and you cannot
force them under the axe of the Franchise. This is how
they regard it, and it is folly to ignore the fact and not to
act on its reality. It is of n6 use to tell them that “ on
one side of the Alps Democracy consecrates Despotism, on
the other it inaugurates Liberty,” and that in England it
would, with the working class as it has done with the
middle class—consolidate order. They do not believe it,
and the expense of an agitation which shall make them
believe it, is so costly and uncertain that every practical
politician has an interest in giving heed to plans that
might meet the difficulty, without disappointing the
people, and enable Time, ever a better converter than
force, to change their opinion.
In justice to the governing class, who to their honour
manifest a far fairer disposition now than in former years,
it must be owned that “ nearly the whole educated class is
united in uncompromising hostility to a purely democratic
suffrage—not so much because it would make the most
numerous class, the strongest power; that many of the
educated classes would think only just. It is because it
would make them the sole power : because in every consti
tuency the votes of that class would swamp, and politically
annihilate all other members of the community taken
*
together. ” The real “Dilemma,” indeed, is that all
Radical orators reason in favour of universal suffrage, with
out arming themselves with any plan which meets this forMr. Mills’Review of Mr. Hare’s plan. “Fraser’s Magazine.’
�12
The Liberal Situation.
midable objection. After Mr. Gladstone’s late intrepid and
conscientious speech, one would think that he might find one.
Were it agreeable to the will, it is quite possible to the
wisdom of Parliament to devise and annex to any Bill of
Reform a plan which will enfranchise all honest men with
out thus swamping the votes or influence of gentlemen ;
which no Englishman wishes to neutralise or diminish.
Whoever of political influence may advocate a plan of this
description may count upon the enthusiasm of the nation ;
Bince no workman could, without baseness, rejoice in a par
tial enfranchisement which included himself, while it left
his less fortunate brethren to renew the old struggle, brand
ed by the old exclusion. This would be to manifest that
spirit of politics without conscience which the Orleanisis of
France displayed when they had placed Louis Phillippe on
the throne, and the middle classes of England since they
won the Reform Bill There may be no reason to refuse
even a partial enfranchisement, but it would be as indecent
in the working classes to exult in it as it would be in ten
men who were taken from a wreck by choice of the captain,
and who should throw up their caps in the face of all those
left to their fate.
If it can appear that the greatest mass of reformers can
he united in favour of the partial plan, and no other, it
will be the duty of all to support that with such energy as
can be commanded. The political experience of the last
thirty years has shown that reformers should persist in
saying what they want—maintain what is right—and unite
for what they can get. For myself, I do not write as an
obstructionist: while I plead for what I believe to be pos
sible and know to be necessary, I would work for whatever
may diminish the discredit of our present representation.
I belong to that class of Reformers who hold it to be dis
creditable to exist without rights, and infamous to rest
under their refusal. It can never be too often repeated
that nob to seek enfranchisement is not to deserve it.
I never look without contempt on any who submit
to political exclusion; I never see without resent
ment those who advise or excuse, or connive or countenance
it. The franchise is more than a right—it is the means of
discharging a public duty. And those who stand in the
way of discharging that duty degrade me, and I resent the
act, however veiled or explained—justified it never can be.
Many generous politicians represented at the Bradford
platform, desire the enfranchisement of the whole people.
I know that the limited measure they deem practicably is
forced upon them by the enemies of Reform. Let, how
�The Liberal Situation.
13
ever, the people who shall accept such measure, do so with
their eyes open—and let it be seen that their eyes are open.
Let those who accept it, do so as a pledge to use their power
on behalf of their countrymen excluded ; and then their
acquiescence in the measure will have consistency, if not
honour, in it.
The opponents of Reform exult in the apathy of the people.
The exultation is as indecent as the existence of the apathy
is a reproach. There are six millions of adult men swarming
our streets and workshops, lanes and alleys, towns and
villages, peopling our mines and lining our shores—hard
working, patient, and honest, whose toil goes to swell our
wealth, and who are content to have no voice in expending
the taxes they raise, or in controlling those wars in which
their blood is spilt; who are satisfied to be counted as the
“swinish multitude,” whose interest no member of Parlia
ment is elected to consult, whose opinions no statesman
regards, whose voices at a public meeting no one counts,
whose expression of opinion is sneered at as so much im
potent, popular, ignorant clamour; a people whom, the
governing class
“Holds when its pride has spent its haughty force
As something better than- its dog, a little dearer than its
horse.”
It is a national humiliation when there exists thus a vast
out-lying population without active unrest under this state
of things. The unenfranchised classes owe to Mr. Bright an
infinite debt of gratitude, whose single voice, when all
others were silent, has been heard in the ignominious years
that have passed, urging their rights and recalling them to
self-respect. If Mr. Bright counsels that on the whole the
best thing now is to unite in favour of the partial enfran
chisement programme, his decision ought to be accepted as
final, for he alone has earned the right to determine the
policy of the Reform party.
It shows in a very striking manner the ascendancy of
aristocratic and conservative influence in England, that the
governing classes have contrived not only to beat back, but
to break down the reform spirit—that after the lapse of 30
years, Reformers come up asking for a meaner and shabbier
bill than they were able to carry 30 years ago, for none of
the Bills of late years introduced will produce anything
like the change which the old Reform Bill effected, ineffi
cient as it was. Indeed the value of the proposed reform
bill of Mr. Baines is so small that no one can feel more
than a theoretical enthusiasm about it. Every measure of
�14
The Liberal Situation.
reform introduced or contemplated takes the poor-rate as
a basis for the franchise. Lord John’s bill did this—Mr.
Baines’ does it. The Newcastle Chronicle has shown that
the number of houses compounded for by landlords of the
annual value of £6, £7, £8, £9, and £10 respectively,
amount altogether to 8,000 houses in the four
boroughs of Gateshead, South Shields, Sunderland,
and Newcastle-upon-Tyne. Mr. Baines’ Franchise Bill
would not give a vote to any one of them. The compound
ing system has probably disfranchised more people than
any Reform Bill, at present talked of, proposes to add to
the electoral constituency. From a note to the returns
published by Government it appears that in Birmingham
alone there are upwards of 7,000 male occupiers of £10
houses who compound with their landlords for their rates,
and who prefer losing their votes to becoming personally
liable to such rates.
One is compelled to admit, with the Economist, that the
question of Reform is treated generally in a commonplace
spirit, which excites surprise and bodes no good. Every
scheme, it appears, is to be derided except those that run
in old ruts. This was the old Chartist error, and cost us
dearly. Reformers, if this policy continues, will be the
prey of infinite delays and disappointments. It is quite
time that political questions in England were adjusted by
political reason, rather than by the exigence of neces
sity and party strife. If no such supplementary plan
of Reform as that of Earl Grey’s guilds, or Mr. Buxton’s
proportional Voting, should be adopted, why could there
not be added to Mr. Baines’ Bill an Intelligence Franchise,
as an addition to the utmost extension of the suffrage
he can obtain ? Then one satisfactory termination of the
question would be made. Politicians of all parties admit
that the franchise may be trusted to the intelligent. Let
them decide what knowledge a man ought to have to enable
him to vote, and if he does not acquire it his exclusion will
be his discredit and not the State’s. Practical mastery of
some sound popular book on Political Economy and one on
Constitutional History would secure the requisite intelli
gence. Government school examiners might attend at me
chanics’ institutions (which would'then have some vitality,
interest, and use in them), and give certificates of electoral
fitness, the holders of which should be entitled io be placed
on the list of electors.
*
* A sketch of the machinery existing, and probable results
of a plan of this description, appeared in letters addressed to
�The Liberal Situation.
15
This species of franchise would have dignity in it, it would
make education a political necessity, and in another genera
tion would enfranchise a large proportion of the people, and
ultimately transmute the English working class into the
noblest electoral constituency in the world. Such a plan,
not as a substitute for any contemplated present extension
of the suffrage, but as an addition to it—providing for a
continual increase of the electoral body in proportion to
the ascertained intelligence of the unenfranchised—would
satisfy the best friends of the people. *
In pleading for an Intelligence Franchise, I do it for the
sake of the progress it ensures. I am well aware, and so
are those who exclaim against the want of Intelligence
in the people, that Ignorance never has been in this
country a political disqualification. England has always
been largely governed by privilege and ignorance. If an
Intelligence Franchise were to be universally enforced in
England, we should disfranchise more than half our pre
sent electors, and many magistrates: and perhaps some
members of Parliament would fall under the rule. No one
can deny the suffrage on the ground that an elector
might make a fool of himself. > The right of making a
fool of himself is a sacred thing in this country—and a
privilege of which many avail themselves. Indeed, if
such a right was disputed, it would be defended by a
greater number of persons interested than any other right
that could be threatened.
Lord John Russell and the “Daily News,” reprinted under the
title of the “ Workman and the Suffrage,” 1858. The Council of
the Northern Reform Union afterwards adopted a memorial to
Lord Stanley, as one of those statesmen reputed to treat politics
as the science of public justice, praying his attention to this
subject.
* Nothing could be more remarkable or conclusive than the fol
lowing remarks from a pamphlet which, though not published
until 1859, was written, in greater part, at an earlier date;—“ No
Conservative needs object to making the franchise accessible to
those [the working] classes at the price of a moderate degree of
useful and honourable exertion. To make a participation in poli
tical rights the reward of mental improvement, would have many
inestimable effects besides the obvious one. It would do more
than merely admit the best and exclude the worst of the working
classes ; it would do more than make an honourable distinction
in favour of the educated, and create an additional motive for
seeking education It would cause the electoral suffrage to be in
time regarded in a totally different light. It would make it to be
thought of, not as now, in the light of a possession to be used by
the voter for his own interest or pleasure, but as a trust for the
public good. It would stamp the exercise of the suffrage as a
matter of judgment, not of inclination; as a public function, the
right to which is conferred by fitness for the intelligent per
formance of it.”-J. S. Mill. “Thoughts on Parliamentary Re
form.”—pp 30-31.
�i6
The Liberal Situation.
For reasons which had better be confessed, the people
are not in a condition to carry Reform themselves. Their
political education has been so much and so long neglected,
that they are now generally uninclined or incapable of self
organisation —without which they are powerless. In the
ire-action which will surely come they may amend this de
ficiency. Besides the working class of England prefer to
be led by gentlemen, and there are not as yet a sufficient
number of gentlemen who care for Reform sufficiently, to
incur the time, labour, cost, and obloquy of leading them.
The sympathy of our Liberals is not, as a class, with the
people, so much as with the aristocracy. I know many
who would give £30,000 for an estate not worth £10,000,
if by its possession they could live near a duke—while they
would not give five shillings to enfranchise their countrymen.
The Radicals have let a whole generation slip out of their
hands. They began with the treacherous dogma that
“ Truth is great and will prevail”—not knowing that it is
the very worst thing to fight with, and is always beaten
unless stoutly and expensively supported. Thus for twenty
years there has been scarcely a single political union in the
country, with funds to secure it three months’ existence.
The result is that the children of the Radicals of the last
generation are not Reformers now. In the best towns in
the kingdom you can find but scant successors to the men
who once made popular politics wholesome. Reason in the
multitude is a very small quantity, and needs persistent
cultivation to keep it influential. All the machinery for
doing this has been suffered to die out. For years after
the last Reform Bill there were hundreds of electors in
every constituency whose votes could be relied upon. No
one needed to canvas them; they were not to be diverted,
bribed, or intimidated. This class of electors has nearly
disappeared. The other week I looked through the poll
books of the best instructed constituency in the kingdom.
There was a nominal majority of 500 Liberals, but no Par
liamentary agent could predict how they would vote. The
landmarks of principle are no longer discernible. It is said
that “when a Tory government succeeds to this we shall
see what the opposition will do ?” There will be opposition
to act unless the deterioration of politicians is stopped.
Both parties have behaved so much alike of late years that
the people do not know which is which, and have been so
demoralized by the exhibition, that as far as the franchise
is concerned, it does not matter to them which party
rules.
The fact is we have a middle-class Parliament and not a
�7"he Liberal Situation.
V
Parliament of the people at all. The tone, the talk, and
the interests consulted in the House of Commons, are es
sentially middle class, tempered by a deferential regard for
the views and comforts of the “ upper ten thousand.” The
voice of the people, the busy struggling life of the nation,
is practically ignored in that “Rich Man’s Club.” Now
and then some piece of legislation is executed for the bene
fit of the people, but it is the act of patrons and not of dele
gates. The people have the humiliation of knowing that
they have no power to exact it, and in consideration of
having some attention paid them, they are expected not to
make themselves troublesome, or to endeavour to meddle
with governing, which they are told is no business of theirs.
A member of Parliament is a gentleman who enjoys the
joint dignity and luxury of spending 70 millions a year,
and the diminishing handful of licensed persons called
electors, have the exclusive privilege of authorising these
members to assess and collect from the great body of the
nation, who have no voice in the matter, this enormous
sum. This is the scale in which gentlemen spend money
who find themselves in a condition to command it. A Par
liament of the people would have an interest in altering
this. * It is nothing to the purpose to say that the money is
judiciously expended. Those who furnish the money should
have the right of an opinion upon its expenditure ; and a
power of checking it, without which the opinion is of very
little value. If a servant should seize his master’s cheque
book, and proceed to administer his master’s affairs, it is
just possible that he might prove a better administrator,
and more economical manager, than the original owner of
the funds, but no consideration of this kind would induce
the master class to submit to this arrangement. This is
precisely what the governing classes say to the people.
“ We govern you very well, we allow you a good deal of
liberty, quite as much as is good for you, and we put your
means to good account. You are very ill advised not to
leave well alone.” The working class one day will wonder
at the effrontery which addressed this language to them,
and be ashamed for that want of self respect which has led
them so long to submit to it.
Sometimes it is alleged that the working classes are dis
qualified for electoral power because they are capable of
* The Financial Reform Association has shown, as did James
White, M.P., lately in a conclusive speech in Parliament, that the
Incidence of Taxation requires further adjustment in favour of the
people. Vide also Letters on Taxation by S. C. Kell, Esq., of
Bradford.
�i8
The Liberal Situation.
corruption. The Northern Reform. Union made the cost
liest experiment ever made in this country to put down
bribery at elections. They found that all that was wanted to
suppress it in Parliamentary or Municipal elections, was
that bribery should be made a misdemeanour punishable
by summary conviction before a magistrate, and that the
briber should be given in charge like a pickpocket. Bribery
would soon disappear under this treatment, but we had all
soon reason to see that there was no intention or wish to
interfere with it either by judges or Parliament. Men of
*
great fortunes are increasing in England. Parliamentary
honours are important to them. Engaged solely in the ac
cumulation of wealth, they have rendered no public service
entitling them to that distinction, but they can buy their
way to it. They can afford the cost, and bribery is their
sole means of attaining distinction. It is an instrument
which enables the rich to over-ride any claim of personal
merit on the part of less wealthy candidates. Bribery is
a rich man’s convenience, and is valued in England every
year more and more, and will never be put down by a rich
man’s Parliament.
Sometimes this paternal management of the governing
classes is sought to be justified by telling the people that
. they are not taxed disproportionately. If they were not
taxed at all the humiliation put upon them would be as
great. It is every man’s duty to contribute his quota to
the support of the state, and those who affect to relieve
him of the honourable burden mean him ill. They degrade
him. He is intended to pay dearly for the exemption, the
price to be exacted is that of his independence.
Mr. Stansfeld, M.P.. in the well-calculated speech he
delivered at Bradford a few weeks ago, warned the outside
public “ that Reform was only to be dealt with now by
the force of a persistent and overwhelming national will.”
But to create this the re-education of the people has to be
entered on afresh, which will take time. The machinery
of agitation has to be replaced, which will require
means. The dying Parliament will do nothing for Reform.
The next Parliament will do nothing until its days are
nearly numbered, so that we shall have no Reform for
years. The Pall Mall Gazette, with apparently fair in
tentions, gives new currency to the latest political error
that “ Reform must come in time.” Those who believe this
* These results were stated, on the part of the Union, at the Con
ference at York, (convened by the Social Science Association) at
which Lord Brougham presided, when Sir Fitzroy Kelly made his
statement, September, 1864.
�The Liberal Situation.
19
will never see it. The only people worth listening to now
are those who mean to make Reform come. Wearied and in' censed with Radicals playing the game of Whigs, and
Whigs that of Tories, an immoral indifference towards the
return of the Tories to power has taken possession of every
body. The probability that Tories may be better, and the
belief that they cannot be worse, will give us at the
next election a strong Tory Government. The people will
find out the difference then. The right thing is to vote for
Reformers only who can be relied upon, and take measures
to secure the choice of those likely to keep their word.
The difference between a Whig and a Tory is very clear :—
The Tory will rob you of a pound and give you a shilling,
back, in a patronising way—the Whig will rob you equally
and won’t give you even a shilling back, but he will give
you the means of earning two for yourself. The Whig,
stingy as he is, is greatly to be preferred. He promotes
self-help and self-respect. The Tory represents the com
fortable principle of authority and the graciousness of pa
tronage—the Whig troublesomeness of reason and the
harshness of self-exertion—the Tory sufferance and sub
mission—the Whig independence and progress.
The deplorable impotence of the people was never so con
spicuous as now. Mr. Gladstone has made a speech in
favour of Reform which ought to entitle him to the active
gratitude of every non-elector in the kingdom. Before
this time every town and village in the empire ought to
have sent him an address. How powerless, how spiritless,
how wanting in political penetration, how incapable of
taking advantage of this merciful political circumstance,
are the people now. Mr. Gladstone is the first minister in
England who might, to use Mr. Thornton Hunt’s remaafk,
“ become the Premier of the working classes”—who are yet
unable to see or use the rare and priceless opportunity.
On the other hand, how humiliating is the attitude of
Parliament! There are at least 300 gentlemen in the
House of Commons who profess to represent the people of
England, and they turn towards Mr. Gladstone with an
infantine gaze. It is a proud and honourable thing for
him. In them it is something contemptible. Mr. Bright
is by genius and service the natural leader of the people’s
party in Parliament, and he, and about a dozen other mem
bers, are all who seem capable of national imitation or of
standing alone, or show proof of possessing an active con
science in their work. Mr. Stansfeld, in the speech pre
viously referred to, most usefully said “ that constituen
cies should invite no pledge nor accept any from a membe
�20
The Liberal Situation.
unless they were prepared to support him in fulfilling it,
and warned by the past he trusted that no candidate would
enter into a pledge of Reform unless he is determined that
as far as in him lies his party shall redeem it.” There
would be no apathy among the people if members did their
duty in this spirit.
As to apathy there exists no more of it than is natural
under the circumstances which have been allowed to
operate upon the people. Mr. Mill, in those brief but
compendious sentences quoted by Mr. Taylor, M.P., at
Leicester, says :—“ Wherever the sphere of action of hu
man beings is artificially circumscribed, their sentiments
are narrowed and dwarfed in the same proportion. . . .
Let a person have nothing to do for his country and he will
not care for its It is a great discouragement to an indivi
dual, and a still greater one to a class, to be left out of the
Constitution—to be reduced to plead from outside the.
door to the arbiters of their destiny, not taken into con
sultation within.”
Of causes which have contributed to produce political
apathy in the minds of the people I should name :—
L—When they found themselves left out of the Re
form Bill of 1832, having merely obtained a new set
of masters, and that they were not masters of themselves
notwithstanding that their new rulers were more consi
derate than the old ones—disappointments and discourage
ment set in.
2. —Those who were not worn out by the old struggle,
became indignant and disgusted. Indignation, some years
later, led to the disastrous policy of breaking up the meet
ings of the middle class engaged in the Anti-Corn Law
struggle, which robbed the Reform cause of funds and
friends, among those best able to make it efficient by pecu
niary support.
3. —The disgusted portion also set their faces against all
petitions to Parliament, in which they had lost confidence.
This policy diminished political action, kept Parliament
ignorant of popular feeling, and diffused a fatal conviction
that it was of no use doing anything.
4. —-Judicious enemies of the people, denounced as “de
magogues” or “hired orators” every advocate who made
it his business to endeavour to instruct and plead the cause
■of the people. This treacherous daintiness, though it pro
ceeded from topgues and pens venally retained to support
things <as they wene, was actually listened to, until the
ipeople were entirely disarmed of all who, in their rough
••and inecessaiy wayjCoajJdkeepup public spirit among those,
�‘The Liberal Situation,
21
in whom it must die, unless sustained by wholesome agi
tation.
5. —Then came the influence of the well-meaning but
mis-calculating Communists and Co-operators recruited!
from the ranks of the disappointed and disgusted politi
cians. These preached material comfort as a substitute^
for political rights ; forgetful that a fat material prosperity,
purchased at the expense of political duty is more despic
able and morally disastrous than the leanest discontent,
united with self-respect and public spirit.
6. —Afterwards set in the reign of dangerous philosophers
who, like Thomas Carlyle^ diverted the intellect of the
young men of the nation from political pursuits, by cover
ing Parliament with pungent ridicule and mocking at the
ambition of possessing the six millionth degree of partici
pation in the “national palaver.” Other philosophers
more serious, as Professor Newman, sincere friends of the
people, but representing the unfortunate indifference of
gentlemen and scholars to a political privilege, such as the
franchise, which their high position and great personal
influence enable them to do without, but which is the sole
protection of the multitude against absolute oppression or
abjectacquiescence in patronage. These influential publicists
have taught that the personal, commercial and other liber
ties are more precious than the mere right of voting, nob
feeling that every liberty is in peril or is held on suf
ferance by those who have no control ever public affairs.
7. —The American war has had a disastrous influence on
the enfranchisement question. Sir John Ramsden’s inde
cent exultation in the House of Commons, when he an
nounced that “the Republican bubble had burst,” pro
claimed how fatal to the liberty of the people everywhere
is the expected triumph of tyrants anywhere. If the South
could set up a slave empire, the working class in England
would be told to be thankful that they are allowed theliberty they have instead of seeking, for more. It was the
-success of the French Revolution in 1831 that precipitated:
the Reform Bill in England, and the eowp-d’etat of LouisNapoleon in 1851 has thrown back every question of pro
gress in England since. It was this conviction alone that
helped to justify in many eyes the famous attempt of
Orsini. Liberty is never safe in this country with a des
potism flourishing in sight of our shores, appealing to-the
sympathies of our aristocratic classes, always unfriendly topopular liberty. Agricola well understood this principle,
for Gibbon relates that his reason for determining the con
quest of Ireland was “that the ancient Britons would, wean-
�22
The Liberal Situation.
their chains with less reluctance if the prospect and exam
ple of freedom were on every side removed from before
their eyes.” Deep is the interest of the working classes of
England that tyranny should be overthrown in every state
near them, and in every country with which England has
near political relations.
8.—The apathy, and what is worse, the impotence of the
people has been much brought about of late years by the
false promises of Cabinets and Parliaments. Reformers
have been told that they had the word of gentlemen (and
that gentlemen never lie) that Reform would take place.
The people believed this. When gentlemen in high politi
cal position make a public promise nobody doubts its ful
filment. It is naturally supposed that they mean what they
say, and that they will take trouble to redeem their word,
within a fair and reasonable period. These promises put
an end to agitation. It became unnecessary if these gen
tlemen were to be trusted—an impertinence if their word
was to be believed. Reformers were told the time was come
when legislators would do an act of justice because it was
reasonable, and the vulgar methods of out-of-door coercion
might be safely and honourably laid aside. This fatal
counsel prevailed. Nobody foresaw that year after year no
earnest effort would be made to fulfil the promises given,
and that ministers of the crown would plead that though
they promised the fact of Reform, they did not promise the
time, and that Mr. Milner Gibson would have on their part,
reluctantly to confess, by way of excusing them, “ that no
Government having once laid a bill upon the table of the
House would have dared to recede from their position if
the great body of the electors of England had shown that
they were determined to keep them to their promises”—
which was in effect saying that the Cabinet coming forward
to fulfil their promise and finding they were not watched,
took advantage of the circumstance and “skedaddled.” Mr.
Milner Gibson forgot to confess that the promise was made
to non-electors, who were powerless “ to keep the Govern
ment to their promise,” with whom it was therefore doubly
disgraceful to break their word. Mr. Mill has observed
“ there are but few points in which the English as a people
are entitled to the moral pre-eminence with which they are
accustomed to compliment themselves at the expense ef other
nations ; but of these points, perhaps, the one of the great
est importance is that the higher classes do not lie, and the
lower, though mostly habitually liars, are ashamed of
lying ” It is difficult to think that some future political
historian will not have to admit that on the question of
�The Liberal Situation.
23
Reform the “higher classes” have lied and are not
*
r ashamed” of it.
From these combined causes the political education of
the people during the past twenty years has been disas
trously neglected and affected, and they have gone back in
political knowledge and in public spirit. Notwithstanding
this unquestionable deterioration the people are not wanting
in appreciation when a public man, whom they can trust, goes
among them. When Mr. Gladstone (whose merciful interven
tion has since given the people the Annuities Bill) visited the
North, you well remember how when word passed from the
newspaper to the workmen that it circulated through mines
and mills, factories and workshops, and they came out to
greet the only English minister who ever gave the people a
right because it was just they should have it; and gave it
them when there was no power to force it from him.
Without him a Free Press in England was impossible. The
organisation seeking it was the smallest that ever won a great
measure; its funds were limited, its clients were poor, its
friends in Parliament were a hopeless minority. Had it not
been for Mr. Gladstone there would have been no cheap
newspapers in England for years to come. He made him
self the advocate of the unfriended ; he put into the hands
of the poor man the means of political knowledge. Sir
George Cornewall Lewis, the only minister from whom we
had a right to expect it, would have given a hundred con
clusive Whig reasons why it could not be done. If not the
only Chancellor of the Exchequer who ever had a con
science, Mr. Gladstone was the first who was ever known to
have one, and when he went down the Tyne, all the country
heard how twenty miles of banks were lined with people
who came to greet him. Men stood in the blaze of chim
neys ; the roofs of factories were crowded ; colliers came
up from the mines ; women held up their children on the
banks that it might be said in after life that they had seen
the Chancellor of the People go by. The river was covered
like the land. Every man who could ply an oar pulled up
to give Mr. Gladstone a cheer. When Lord Palmerston
went to Bradford the streets were still, and the working
men imposed silence upon themselves. When Mr. Glad
stone appeared on the Tyne, he heard cheers which no
other English minister ever heard. He had done great
things for commerce, and the commercial people were proud
to tell him so ; but the people were grateful to him, and
rough pitmen who never approached a public man before,
pressed round his carriage by thousands. All the distinc
tions of rank were obliterated in their gratitude, and a
�2+
7he Liberal Situation.
thousand arms were stretched out at once, to shake hands
with Mr. Gladstone as one of themselves. If there is a
political apathy in England the gentlemen who hold
the destinies of the country in their hands are themselves
the cause of it, and have themselves to thank for it.
The English people are not constitutionally prone to “ rest
and be thankful”—they never did it yet ; and Lord John
Bussell, who said it, never meant it. He never rested
himself, it is not in his nature, and his son, Lord Amber
ley, bids fair to yet farther illustrate the serviceable unrest
of his race. True he has eaten his words on the platform
at Leeds, but had he been a member of Parliament he would
have preferred eating his pledge in the House.
If proper trouble is taken to revive, or rather re-create
the interests of the people in political rights, it may be
■done with less trouble than formerly and more effectually
than ever. Formerly the people were politicians from im
pulse, next they will become so from conviction, and such
men never go back. The working class have no longer the
prejudices which formerly rendered them impracticable.
They may manifest the possession of special views—they
may desire a complete and generous measure—they
may maintain their preferences for what they con
sider honest and just; but they will offer no opposition
to, and are generally disposed to help all who go in the
direction of the enfranchisement they seek ; and if to the
Political Unions of Bradford, Manchester, and the Northern
Beform Union of Newcastle, are added Unions in Birming
ham and other great towns, and a sufficient Metropolitan
Union in London, the B.form Members might be called
upon to hold meetings among their own constituents, and
take their places as the natural leaders of the people ; but
agitation must be revived professedly and avowedly, and
kept up as an independent department of popular govern
ment. The expectations that a Reform Parliament will
carry the work of political progress forward and lead opinion,
is a delusion. They show no disposition of organisation
among themselves—no more capacity for forming a people’s
party than workmen themselves would show—nor so much.
Bepresentatives manifestly require to be looked after like
any other servants. It’is very discreditable, but it is true.
It shows how little thought has been bestowed on the
actual nature of the Liberal situation, that one may con
stantly hear Members of Parliament lament, as something
unexpected and unfortunate, the indifference of the people
as to Beform. What else is possible, what else is to be
expected ? Is it likely that six millions of persons can
�The Liberal Situation.
25
maintain a perennial attitude of indignation for 30 years ?
Every two or three years they are called out, as it serves
the purpose of one party or other in the state, are promised
Reform, and when interest or hope is re-awakened and
the purpose is served of those who evoked it, they are dis
missed with—nothing. Why, the shepherds in JEsop grew
tired at last of rushing forward at the cry of wolf. No
men will continue to pursue an object unless they can fight
for it, or agitate for it, or buy it, or reason their way to it.
The people have been counselled to lay aside all ideas of
physical force, the only ideas which ever permanently in
terest the great body of Englishmen—agitation has been
discountenanced, and even the right of meeting in the open
air has been interfered with, restricted, and made so ex
pensive as to be impossible to working men. Agitation has
become so costly that only rich men can employ it—and
since workmen have not wealth to buy attention, and rea
son has long failed to win it—what is to be looked for but
that men will turn away in apathy and quiet hate, which
answers no summons and which only accident and oppor
tunity may stimulate into resentful action ?
Even Members of Parliament excuse themselves for doing
so little, saying the the people do not care for Reform.
No people ever do care for liberty unless stimulated to do
so. Liberty is like knowledge—the ignorant do not care
for it, while those who have it will never part with it.
Russian serfs, negroes, and French peasants do not care
for liberty. The desire of liberty is the result of educa
tion in using it; and those who wish to see the many
manifest this noble desire, must put them in a condition
to exercise freedom. It is not from the neglected and un
taught many—not from the ignorant, the selfish, or supine,
from whom the apostolate of enfranchisement should be
expected, but from the educated few—from the informed
politician, from the gentleman and member of Parhament.
Mr. John Stuart Mill, the one great exception among Eng
lish philosophers, who has ever lent the weight of his name
to the cause of the people, has given reasons to thinkers,
and the governing classes, which, were conscience allied to
politics, would infuse enthusiasm into the advocacy of those
who now ignobly wait on others.
“ It is important,” says this writer, “that every one of
the governed should have a voice in the government, be
cause it can hardly be expected that those who have no
voice will not be unjustly postponed to those who have.
It is still more important as one of the means of national
education. A person who is excluded from all participa
�26
The Liberal Situation.
tion in political business is not a citizen. He has not the
feelings of a citizen. To take an active interest in politics
is, in modern times, the first thing which elevates the mind
to large interests and contemplations ; the first step out of
the narrow bounds of individual and family selfishness, the
first opening in the contracted round of daily occupation.
The person who in any free country takes no interest in
politics, unless from having been taught not to do so, must
be too ill-informed, too stupid or too selfish, to be interested
in them; and we may rely on it that he cares as little for
anything else, which does not directly concern himself or
his personal connexions. Whoever is capable of feeling
any common interest with his kind, or with his country, or
with his city, is interested in politics; and to be interested
in them, and not to wish for a voice in them is an impossi
bility. The possession and the exercise of political, and
among others of electoral rights, is one of the chief instru
ments both of moraland of intellectual training for the
popular mind ; and all governments must be regarded as
extremely imperfect, until every one who is required to
obey the laws, has a voice, or the prospect of a voice, in their
enactment and administration.”
One who is as keen to see as feeling to describe, * asks of
the British labourer, whose days are worn out in mine or
factory—
What end doth he fulfil ?
He seems without a will,
Stupid, unhelpful, helpless, age-worn man.
And this forsooth is all!
A plant or animal
Hath a more positive work to do than he:
Along his daily beat
Delighting in the heat
He crawls in sunshine which he dees not see.
What doth God get from him ?
His very mind is. dim,
Too weak to love, and too obtuse to fear
Is there glory in his strife ?
Is there meaning in his life ?
Can God hold such a thing-like person dear ?
:
"
He hath so long been old
His heart is close and 'Sold ;
He has no love to take no love to give:
Men almost wish him dead
’Twfflp best for him they said
'Twere such a weary sight to see him live.
The Rev. Dr. Faber.
■
�Situation.
27
He walks with painful stoop
As if life made him droap
And care had fastened fetters round his feet;
He sees no bright blue sky,
Except what meets his eye
Reflected in the rain pools in the street.
To whom is he of good ?
He sleeps and takes his food.
He uses the earth and air and kindles fire:
He bears to take relief
Less as a right than grief;
To what might such a soul as his aspire ?
Because the working class try to save, the harassing un
certainty of their efforts is overlooked and under estimated.
In a letter—if I may be permitted to quote it—which was
addressed to Mr. Gladstone, when his Annuities Bill was be
foreParliament, it was testified “thatthe English mechanics
are, as a rule, prudent where they have hopes. They will
save at any cost. I go into the houses of thousands where
the wan cheek of the wife, and the early asthma of the
husband, tell that it is an immoral thing to save,—they
ought to eat every halfpenny they can earn.” It is impos
sible to get public spirit out of this condition of things. A
yet worse condition remains.
During a quarter of a century that I have been accus
tomed to address public meetings, and to witness them ad
dressed by others, I declare that I never once heard an
audience of working men, applaud or personally respond to
any appeal to the glory of their country, or manifest any
feeling of pride in it or about it,—while there is not a back
woodsman, a pedlar, or a workman of the lowest degree,
who comes to Europe from America, who is not a proud
man when he speaks of his country. He has a personal in
terest in it. Its power and renown are part of his life.
The Englishman driven from his country, to better
his condition, has never felt a proud man on his own
shores. Pride in his country as being a part of its renown,
as being an agent in it, actually influencing its home go
*
vernment and foreign policy—is a dead sentiment in an
English working man. He may toil, he may fight, he may
shed his blood in his country’s battles in every part of the
world—he may defend its power with his life, but he
knows that his father at home will not be allowed a politi
cal vote.
In Guildhall, London, I have witnessed a middle class
orator turn to the statues there, and heard him invoke re
gard for that national renown which these warriors and
statesmen built up. Naturally the merchants and electors
responded to the appeal—they were a conscious part of
�28
The Liberal Situation.
that renown. In a meeting in which working men and
others (of the middle class) are present, slmiliar appeals
may be, or appear to be responded to by contagion of cheer
ing—but among working men, or by them, these appeals
are never introduced. Nobody thinks of them. No one
feels pride in that of which he has had no part, and from
the glory of which he has been designedly and contumeliously excluded. An American is a part of his Republic.
He owns some of its soil. He is one of its recognised citi
zens. He has something to say as to who shall be Gover
nor of his state or its Senator, and even President of his
nation ! The American boasts of his country with a per
sonal pride—he brags of it—but his very “ brag” has some
thing wholesome in it. In England a workman is nobody.
The utmost political privilege accorded to him is that of
hooting at a hustings while some one is elected who shall
tax his earnings in spite of him, and dispose of them with
out his consent. He is not within the pale of the constitu
tion. Six millions are thrust outside of it and kept out
side of it. If workmen assume as much manliness as to
clamour about it, the governing class say, “Oh, let them
clamour—they are only non-electors— they can’t do any
thing,” and with a political contempt, that is neither dis
guised nor concealed, they turn away from them. The
country, its government, its wealth, its power, its noble
constitution, its historic renown, its aristocracy, its middle
class, are thingsapart from the people—who exist by a sore
of sufferance —who are free by permission only—having no
recognition and no power. They receive at the utmost
the praise of useful cattle—their industry sometimes wins
them such commendation as might be bestowed on clever
monkeys, or they obtain the paternal approval given to po
litical children. If any one thinks this an overdrawn pic
ture let him remember that all praise of the people has
this sting in it—it is given to those who are never trusted
and never meant to be trusted.
We are accustomed in this country to allude to the con
dition of the slave, who, when he sets foot on English soil,
becomes free. 'In the same way and yet more honourably,
the Americans, the Canadians, and our Australian brethren
boast that the English labourer so soon as he becomes a re
sident in those lands, becomes enfranchised—
“ If his lungs breathe their air, that moment he is free,
He touches their country, and his shackles fall.”
He is admissable for the first time to the duties and dignity
of citizenship.
As to the effect of the Franchise in England, if extended
�’The Liberal Situation.
29
universally without conditions, there is not the slightest
ground for fear except on the part of those who seek to
extend it. The Englishman is Conservative down to
the Costermonger. The very populace are Tory in heart.
The first effect of universal suffrage in England would he
that we should have more gentlemen and Lords returned
to the House of Commons than ever. Colonels and per
sons of wealth and title would at once go up in the Elec
toral scale. For a time constitutional prejudice and bi
gotry would prevail. The clergyman and the squire would
reign, and liberty would very likely go back in England—
but it would be for the last time. National education
would become a political necessity, experience in freedom
would be acquired, and liberty would one day rest on
broader and surer foundations than in any country in the
world. There would arise an aristocracy of merit whom
all would honour, and wealth instead of looking like a frau
dulent exception would be regarded as a sign of the common
triumph of competence. The moment an Englishman is
endowed with power he becomes a new creature. Pipe
clay a country boor and pronounce over him the magic
shibboleth of “duty”—catch a wild mechanic or a turbu
lent prize-fighter, and buckle a policeman’s strap round
him, and henceforth he personates devotion to the death
and becomes possessed of a ludicrous and inconvenient
passion for propriety and order. The English nature which
yields only thistles on the exposed common of exclusion,
is no sooner admitted to cultivation, in some authorised
enclosure, than it is fruitful in flowers of' established
tints. The riotous Radicals enfranchised in 18B2, have
for years set up a more dismal and protracted shriek
against Reform, than ever the Boroughmongers set up
against them. He who scratches a Radical in power will
find a Whig under his skin. Half of them are screaming
out against a transfer of power. The thing is perfectly
impossible in England. Universal suffrage would neither
disturb nor desire to disturb the influence of family, wealth
and learning. And when it attains to intelligent action
(if it should ever be permitted to exist) the multitudinous
collision of its interests and opinions will effectually prevent
the people acting as a class. But it is idle for the people
*
thus to argue their right to enfranchisement. You may
find in the invaluable writings of Toulmin Smith historical
arguments irrefutable, to prove that we ask merely for the
* See a letter on this point by Mr. S. C. Kell, of Bradford.—
“ Daily News,” Feb., 1865.
�3°
T'he Liberal Situation.
restoration of ancient rights. Those who now garrison
the constitution care nothing for what was. They don’t
like Democracy and don’t intend to pass any measure in
favour of it—and there’s an end of it. After 30 years of
failure in reasoning with successive Parliaments he must
be logic-mad who thinks to win Reform by it. A woman’s
reason “I will have it, because I will" is, if accompanied
by a woman’s resolution, worth all other arguments now,
And if intelligence proceeds among women, they are likely
to insist with more zeal than men, upon being included
in the franchise to which they have undoubtely an equal
right. An aristocracy of sex is quite as offensive and more
injurious than an aristocracy of rank.
Professor Newman, whose sympathies and position na
turally connect him with the higher and cultured classes,
has witnessed of late years such complicity of sympathy
on the part of the aristocracy and governing class of Eng
land with the despots of Europe, and those who seek to
ally Republicanism permanently with slavery in America,
that he has borne the important testimony that the best
interests of liberty, morality, and progress, are most likely
to be promoted by the Democracy, and may be advantage
ously and safely entrusted to them. *
It will be well when constituencies set their faces against
mere rich men or men of title as such, but who have never
done anything. The only ground on which any one ought to
be permitted to enter Parliament is that he shall have done
some service or acquired some distinction showing interest
in and capacity for national affairs. Now a man who has
a title or great wealth, but who never did anything for the
people, who does not know how to do it and does not wish to
know, is preferred by constituences to those who by thought,
or toil, or sacrifice, have regarded the public welfare as
higher than their own. Until the people set their faces
against these showy, worthless, and base candidates, and
personally and publicly despise every elector who votes for
them, there will be no Reform in this country.
So long as the tread of a foreign master presses the soil
of Italy, no Italian, thinks himself free. The Unity of his
country is his first thought. His trade interests as a
workman are subordinate to his efforts after national inde
pendence. So in England the first thought of all work
men should be enfrachisement. Until a man is one of the
nation—has a voice in its affairs—is one of those whose
- * Vide—The Permissive Bill more urgent than Parliamentary
Enfranchisement, by F. W. Newman.
�The Liberal Situation.
31
views must be counted—who is taken into the national con
sultation—he is enslaved.
Earl Bussell has just told us in his Essay on the English
Constitution, that he differs from those who hold that “ the
right of voting is a personal privilege possessed by every
man of sound mind and years of discretion as an inherent
inalienable right.” He holds that “the purpose to be at
tained is good government, the freedom within the State
and their security from without,” and he would stop the
suffrage at the point which promised this. This is the
pure paternal theory, very benevolent, and very offensive.
There requires no enlargement of the suffrage to accom
plish this —for good government here may mean merely
that sort of government which those who govern deem
good: anyhow, should those who are governed differ in
opinion as to what is good for them, they will have no
power to help themselves under the operation of this
theory. There is no popular party now who'rest its claims
on Whig words of “personal privilege,” or talk'of “in
alienable rights.” The people having given up banding
the terms of political metaphysics. They look at the mat
ter of enfranchisement in a far more practical way. They
do not ask for the vote as a “ personal privilege'” they seek
it as a means of discharging a public duty. Every person
in a state is responsible for what goes on in the state,
whether good or evil is done it comes home to him and to
his children, and it is his interest and duty to see that what
is done is what it should be. There is bilt one right, that
of doing one’s duty. Whether the right of voting is “ in
alienable” or not is of no consequence? The right of go
verning is not “ inalienable” in any Whig, nor in the mid
dle class who have all acquired it. Let the people acquire
the same thing and no one will raise the “inalienable”
question.
No politicians, with few exceptions, now cafe for anybody
but th emselves. Their whole skill consists in giving reasons
why they should hold the privileges dr places they have,
and why no one else could be safely entrusted with them.
That member of government is deemed most valuable who
finds out the most plausible reason for doing nothing, or
who can best delay the fulfilment, or best defend the breach
of a promise, and this is the whole art of English states
manship which we are called upon to reverence as good
government.
It is quite true we have a great edifice of liberty in
this country—we have a certain amount of good govern
ment, and I can sympathise with and respect those who
�32
The Liberal Situation.
are reluctant to risk it. The whole force of these reasoners
would, be given on the side of enfranchisement were it ac-.
companied by protective conditions. “ Good government”
would not and need not be risked.
The National Reform Union of Manchester does propose
an extension of the suffrage “to every householder or
lodger rated or liable to be rated for the relief of the poor.”
A bill which included all this, would do, and would end
the agitation. But there is no such bill drawn. There is
no member who would introduce it. Nor is there any pro
bability of carrying it. The union gives no sign of prepa
ration or persistency for carrying it. It would require a
revolution to carry it. The union does not mean this. It
does not even confront, nor even discuss the grounds of
opposition to such a bill.
Its programme runs
in the old, tiresome, tame, wearying, struggling,
discouraging, Radical rut.
It proposes a suffrage
without guarantees for its qualified action. It gives to the
working class the numerical majority. I am not one who
believe that the working class would ever vote down the
men of property and education. But they might do so.
No absolute guarantee can be given that they never would
do so, and the men of property and intelligence would
have, if this bill passed, to trust to this event not occur
ring. They would hold their liberty and interests on suf
ferance. They would be in the same position in which the
unenfranchised now are. Objecting myself to hold my
liberty on sufferance, I should be most reluctant to put
this risk on the educated and wealthy class. No class
ought to be putin this position. No class ought to submit
to it. Now this is the real dilemma which exists. This
dilemma the National Reform Union neither recognizes
nor provides for. This formidable difficulty no Radical
orator meets. This is why the Reform question stagnates
and remains where it is. Everybody at times feels this
difficulty, yet no one on the side of Radical Reform dares
look it in the face, ox has the courage to state it, or attempt
to meet it. How can it be met except by adopting Mr.
Mill’s proposal of giving the wealthy and educated classes
the protection of cumulative votes ? or by acting on Earl
Grey’s suggestion of giving to the unenfranchised classes
a special number of members who should share in the re
presentation without swamping it ? Liberal M. P. ’s and the
Liberal press appear to have set their faces against such
indispensable plans, caricaturing them as “ fancy franchises”
as though a vast and Protective Suffrage, which obviated
an overwhelming difficulty, could be so described? It has
�The Liberal Situation.
33
been assumed that the opinion of the people is against any
such plan, whereas the opinion of the people has never yet
been taken upon it. No meeting of the people, no Reform
Union has ever yet discussed anything of the kind, except
ing some dozen meetings which the present writer has ad
dressed, when very favourable attention has been uniformly
given to the subject. I know towns where ardent Re
formers are themselves afraid of an Unqualified Suffrage.
Good Radicals, the most thorough of their class, have said to
me, “ There is a mob in our town [there is in every town],
ignorant, selfish, venal, and reckless of principle : had they
all votes, our present Liberal members would be unseated
at the next election. They would vote against those who
seek to raise them.” This is a general feeling in Liberal
boroughs. Now there is no plan of £6 suffrage which
selects the worthy and excludes the base. ■ All £6 suffrage
is blind ; and hence we have Radicals arguing feebly and
fearing much the results of the very measure they plead
for. Surely this is political imbecility. This is the real
dilemma which ought to be put an< end to by adopting a
plan of protective suffrage, of which the only opponents are
Radicals whose policy has long undergone petrifaction.
Our Liberal members, to use the wholesome/ language of
the Daily News, “have done their best to emasculate
politics and make it the hollow unprincipled thing it now
is; a miserable game from which men are feeling, that they
must retire out of sheer disgust.” At the request of a
Liberal M.P. I went recently to the best-informed and most
reliable working-class leaders of the old school to ascertain
whether they would move Reform-wards. Their decisive
answer was, “ Let those who think something ought to be
done do it. We have no more belief in Members, of Par
liament. If our vote could unseat a Liberal at the next
election it would constitute our only interest in giving it.”
Mr. Bright, Mr. P. A. Taylor, and other leaders who can
be trusted, have consistently acquiesced in a demand for
“ manhood” suffrage. It is quite necessary that the people
form their own opinions as to the kind of Reform Bill to
be demanded, and ask for no blind or wild measure, but
for a universal and Qualified Suffrage, and then the vexa
tion, not to say outrage, of “ partial” enfranchisement will
sink into the category of “fancy” futilities. Taking care
that they are practical, and sure that they are reasonable,
the people may take courage and be resolute.
Mr. Baines, M.P., has injudiciously cut up the Reform
Bill into pieces, with a view to introduce the “ thin end of
the wedge” into the House. There is no assembly in the
�34
The Liberal Situation.
world with a sharper eye for thin ends of wedges than the
House of Commons. You can’t “ dodge” Parliament, and
it makes the people look foolish when they are represented
as trying it. Bad as the House is, there is more to hope
from its treatment of a bold and open demand, than from
its acquiescence in small dexterity.
Mr. Todd, of Gateshead, has shown in the Newcastle
Chronicle, from a practical knowledge of the working of
the suffrage, that Mr. Baines’ Bill based on rate-paying
would be as fraudulent as Lord Russell’s was. As Mr. R.
B. Reed expresses it, an £8 suffrage without a rate-paying
clause would be of more value than a £6 suffrage with it.
Mr Cobden has serviceably approved Mr. Todd’s proposal
of basing the suffrage on moderate house-tax, which would
put an end to all evasion and deception, and also to those
modern nuisances—Revising Barristers’ Courts.
Earl Grey is good enough to say in his volume, already
referred to, that “Reform cannot be much longer delayed.”
It is quite a gratuitous remark. Reform can be delayed.
It can be refused with more safety now than at any time
since 1832. The people are disarmed, demoralised, and
impotent. Gentlemen do not care for Reform. Members of
Parliament have coute to an understanding to frustrate it.
The Cabinet intend to evade it. It can be safely disre
garded, and the governing classes know it.
After the tone in which Earl Grey’s work has been
spoken of by the liberal press, I was surprised to find it
well written, very instructive, and fair in spirit. Whoever
breaks the fatal and demoralising silence on the Reform
question is to be regarded. We have no apostolate of poli
tical freedom in England now. There is more honest and
honourable thought for the black slave in America than
for the white workman in England. The negroes will be
come part of the “ territorial democracy” before a sixth
part of our countrymen will be deemed eligible for a £6
franchise.
Both Earl Grey and Earl Russell hold to one principle,
that the franchise is to be treated merely as a means of
“good government”—a principle which renders any fran
chise needless, provided the governing class condescend
to behave well. The Emperor of the French governs
without any franchise now—for that he substitutes ma
terial comfort. The French people are treated in theory as
political swine. Their styes are repaired—they are given
clean straw, their troughs are filled with paternal wash, and
they are provided with a History of Julius Caesar to read:
what more can they want—what more could the franchise
�The Liberal Situation.
35
do for them ? This is the actual consideration urged by
the Times and the opponents of the franchise upon the
people of England; and despicable as it is, it is the argu
ment of the greatest force, of the most constant recurrence
and popularity among us.
There was dignity in sedition, conspiracy itself was a
proof of manliness compared with this base temper and in
action inculcated upon the people of England. The voices
of O‘Connor and Ernest Jones were far nobler and wholesomer than this. Had we had of late years men who knew
how to die for freedom as they have had in Italy, we should
now be in a different position. It is better to be feared
than despised.
Nothing remains now but for the people to take their
own affairs into their own hands, with singleness of purpose
and fixed resolution to carry their own ends themselves.
All hope in Parliament has long been over. Trust in
members or the promises of Cabinets is a delusion and a
snare. There must be advocacy and organisation. If it
could be shown that violence can carry their objects it would
be perfectly right to employ it. Those who are refused
political recognition in a state, owe no allegiance to it. It
may be imprudent, it may be disastrous to think of vio
lence, but that is a mere question of policy. The necessity
of resorting to some form of force, moral or physical, is
unquestionable. There is an end of political responsibility
where the right of political existence is denied. The tone
of Parliament towards the unenfranchised, admits of no
mistake as to its resolute defiance. If the people are found
to be ignorant they are said to be unfit—if intelligent they
are declared to be dangerous—if they clamour they are to
be resisted—if silent to be disregarded—if feeble and with
out organisation to be despised— if strong they are to be
put down by force. What can it matter what they do
while they are thus treated. To make themselves judi
ciously disagreeable is their only chance of redress. After
fifty years of boasted progress, the maxim of Bentham still
remains true, that “ there is no Reform possible in Eng
land until you make the ruling powers uneasy.” Without
enfranchisement not of a few merely, but of the whole who
are honest and industrious, there is no political life; with
out the franchise there is no political existence ; belief in
it should be the one faith, and the pursuit of it the one
objeot of the working class. No trade interest should be
regarded but as secondary; any form of social liberty
should be held as subordinate; mere material comfort
should be despised in comparison with this. No one should
�36
The Liberal Situation.
be listened to who stands in the ^ay of enfranchisement,
no workman should cease to recent as an act of personal
outrage every attempt to delay the attainment of it. It
should never be forgotten that no one is regarded in poli
tics except those who possess themselves of the means, and
show the intention of enforcing their own claims.
I subscribe myself a Member of the Northern Reform
Union, which has never departed from the sound doctrine
that it is the people of England who require enfranchise
ment, and that the people axe not a class.
G. J. HOLYOAKE.
282, Strand, London, W.C.,
Maroh 24,1865.
w-< ■. <0
PAMPHLETS
BY THE SAME AUTHOR.
The Workman and the Suffrage—Letters on
An Intelligence Franchise (1858) .
•
The Public Lesson
of
The Hangman
.
.
4th
id.
NEWCASTLE OH-TTSS I PRINTED AT THE " DAILY CHRONICLE" OTFICE.
�
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A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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The liberal situation necessity for a qualified franchise, a letter to Joseph Cowen, Jun.
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Holyoake, G. J.
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Place of publication: London
Collation: 36 p. ; 19 cm.
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[1865]
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Liberalism
Suffrage
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Conway Tracts
Joseph Cowen
Liberal Party (Great Britain)
Liberalism
Suffrage
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Text
RELIGION.
TO THE EDITOR OF THE “ HACKNEY AND KINGSLAND GAZETTE.
Sir,—As you have for some time past been favouring your readers
with the views of several of the ministers of the neighbourhood on Theology,
perhaps you will kindly find space for the following views of a layman on
what he presumes to call “ Religion,” and oblige,
Yours respectfully,
I believe in Rational Christianity, pure and simple, or Christian mo
rality, as was taught by Christ; in contra-distinction to the adulterated
clerical Christianity now so prevalent, and which has almost elbowed the
Christianity of Christ out of the world; whereby superstition and foolish
rites and ceremonies are substituted in the room of pure morality, true vir
tue, and genuine religion. I believe the Christianity of Christ to he
“ Peace on earth, goodwill to man,” the love of God and our neighbour,
universal charity and benevolence, and the golden rule of “ doing to
others as w7e would have them to do unto us,” and not in the incomprehensible
creeds and unintelligible dogmas of popular theology. I believe in a God
of perfect justice, who rewards the good in exact proportion to their merits,
and proportionately punishes the wicked ; such punishments being correc
tive and purifying : “ whatsoever a man sows so shall he reap.” That the
favour of God and happiness are to be procured by repentance and amend
ment; by personal not by vicarious agency. That well-matured reason and
conscience are the best guides to be depended on, and if we neglect or re
nounce their directions and admonitions, we lay ourselves open to all man
ner of delusion and priestcraft, hateful to God and destructive to mankind.
That instead of stereotyped creeds, blind zeal, and religious persecution for
“righteousness’ sake,” we should promote love, peace, temperance, gratitude,
charity and universal benevolence : so as to reduce religion to that plain,
simple system^ of aiming to attain that abstract perfection as taught by
Christ, wJ^Bjd“ Be ye perfect.” The principles to promote $hese are few
and easy: lst/l^^e is a God, an Almighty Creator, to whom all existence
belongs and is subject) and who ought to be worshipped by all mankind.
2nd, That by his7 immutable laws, the good are rewarded and the wicked
punished here and hereafter. 3rd, That repentance and reformation are
.required to obtain the one and escape the other. 4th, That true religion
�2
is that which was stated by Christ, “ Thou shalt love the Lord thy God
with all thy heart and soul and strength, and thy neighbour as thyself.”'
To love God is to love all “ Good,” as truth, justice, charity, and every
good work ; to love truth is to love the “ God of Truth,” &c.
I do not believe in the orthodox view of the atonement, that Christ
came to reconcile God to us, but rather that he came to reconcile us to God..
I do not believe in the necessity of his having to be crucified, and to take
upon himself the sins of all, before man could be saved ; if such were the
case how infinitely grateful we ought to be to those orthodox Jews who
cruelly put him to death, in order that we might be saved ! Neither do I
•believe in the orthodoxy of the present day, which says “there are three
Gods all equal,” and yet so unequal that one God is ever interceding, and
endeavouring to appease the wrath of another God ! if so, one must be in
the wrong ! I believe in the absolute perfection of a Divine Creator, and
who does not thus require to be changed in order that endless punishment
may be averted, for temporary sins. I believe that God is love, and that
his “ mercy” and not his chastisement “ endureth for ever.”
I do not believe in “ original sin” and that man was pre-ordained to
be its victim ; nor in the destruction of unbaptized infants, as the Roman
and Anglican priests tell us. I prefer Christ’s doctrine ; he says “ of such
is the kingdom of Heaven.” I do not believe in that best friend of priest
craft,—a personal devil, and who is said to be more mighty than the Allmighty in obtaining the greatest number of immortal souls, thus having
power to thwart God’s providence,—nor in a material hell-fire, which is
ever consuming those souls. I do not believe “ in three Gods, yet one
God” which the Church of England says we must believe or “ without
doubt perish everlastingly.” Its creeds are to me downright blasphemy.
1 do not believe that the Bible was divinely inspired” from beginning to
end and was all written by the “finger of God.” I believe the Bible was made
for man, not man for the Bible, that it is an historical, moral and spiritual
teacher, not altogether correct, but containing many truths and many
errors ; a compilation of different works by different authors, written at
different periods, and by the most learned and wise men of their day, but
that neither they nor their works are infallible, as the science of geology
and astronomy, and even their own contradictions prove. That men in
after ages collected and bound together such of these books as they thought
proper and called them the Bible, and that these selfsame human beings,
at the Council of Nice, &c., rejected such other books as they thought
of less worthy note ; that these men were also as learned and wise as the
times would permit, but not infallible and possibly not altogether without
prejudice or partiality.
I believe real Christianity to be absolute religion, which thinks and
works ; goodness towards man, and piety towards God; undogmatic, un
sectarian, liberal, broad and free, preached wdth faith and applied to life,
being good and doing good. There is but one real rel i gih we need
only open our eyes to see, and which requires neither creeds nor catechisms
to discern; only live it, in love to God and man, and we are blessed by
Him who liveth for ever, in spite of all that priests and their dupes may say
to the contrary, for thank God they are not to be our judges, other
wise few would escape.
�RELIGION.
TO THE EDITOR OF THE “ HACKNEY AND KINGSLAND GAZETTE.”
Sir,—As you have for some time past beeD favouring your readers
with the views of several of the ministers of the neighbourhood on Theology,
perhaps you will kindly find space for the following views of a layman on
what he presumes to call “ Religion,” and oblige,
Yours respectfully,
C.
I believe in Rational Christianity, pure and simple, or Christian mo
rality, as was taught by Christ; in contra-distinction to the adulterated
■clerical Christianity now so prevalent, and which has almost elbowed the
Christianity of Christ out of the world; whereby superstition and foolish
rites and ceremonies are substituted in the room of pure morality, -true vir
tue, and genuine religion. I believe the Christianity of Christ to be
“ Peace on earth, goodwill to man,” the love of God and our neighbour,
universal charity and benevolence, and the golden rule of “ doing to
others as we would have them to do unto us,” and not in the incomprehensible
creeds and unintelligible dogmas of popular theology. I believe in a God
-of perfect justice, who rewards the good in exact proportion to their merits,
and proportionately punishes the wicked ; such punishments being correc
tive and purifying : “ whatsoever a man sows so shall he reap.” That the
favour of God and happiness are to be procured by repentance and amend
ment; by personal not by vicarious agency. That well-matured reason and
■conscience are the best guides to be depended on, and if we neglect or re
nounce their directions and admonitions, we lay ourselves open to all man
ner ot delusion and priestcraft, hateful to God and destructive to mankind,
that instead of stereotyped creeds, blind zeal, and religious persecution for
“righteousness’ sake,’ we should promote love, peace, temperance, gratitude,
charity and universal benevolence : so as to reduce religion to that plain,
simple system of aiming to attain that abstract perfection as taught by
Christ, who said “ Be yeperfect.” The principles to promote these are few
.and easy: 1st, There is a God, an Almighty Creator, to whom all existence
belongs and is subject, and who ought to be worshipped by all mankind.
2nd, 1 hat by his immutable laws, the good are rewarded and the wicked
punished here and hereafter. 3rd, Ihat repentance and reformation are
.required to obtain the one and escape the other. 4th, That true religion
�2
is that which was stated by Christ, (t Thou shall love the Lord thy God
with all thy heart and soul and strength, and thy neighbour as thyself.”'
To love God is to love all “ Good,” as truth, justice, charity, and every
good work ; to love truth is to love the “ God of Truth,” &q.
I do not believe in the orthodox view of the atonement, that Christ’
came to reconcile God to us, but rather that he came to reconcile us to Gods
I do not believe in the necessity of his having to be crucified, and to take
upon himself the sins of all, before man could be saved ; if such were the
case how infinitely grateful we ought to be to those orthodox Jews who
cruelly put him to death, in order that we might be saved ! Neither do I
believe in the orthodoxy of the present day, which says “ there are three
Gods all equal,’" and yet so wnequal that one God is ever- interceding, and
endeavouring to appease the wrath of another God! if so, one must be in
the wrong ! I believe in the absolute perfection of a Divine Creator, and
who does not thus require to be changed in order that endless punishment
may be averted, for temporary sins. I believe that God is love, and that
his “ mercy” and not his chastisement “ endureth for ever.”
I do not believe in “ original sin” and that man was pre-ordained tn
be its victim ; nor in the destruction of unbaptized infants, as the Roman
and Anglican priests tell us. I prefer Christ’s doctrine ; he says “ of such'
is the kingdom of Heaven.” I do not believe in that best friend of priest
craft,—a personal devil, and who is said to be more mighty than the Allmighty in obtaining the greatest number of immortal souls, thus having
power to thwart God’s providence,—nor in a material hell-fire, which isever consuming those souls. I do not believe “ in three Gods, yet one
God” which the Church of England says we must believe or “ without
doubt perish everlastingly.” Its creeds are to me downright blasphemy.
I do not believe that the Bible was divinely inspired” from beginning toend and was all written by the “finger of God,” I believe the Bible was made
for man, not man for the Bible, that it is an historical, moral and spiritual
teacher, not altogether correct, but containing many truths and many
errors ; a compilation of different works by different authors, wr itten at
different periods, and by the most learned and wise men of their day, but
that neither they nor their works are infallible, as the science of geology
and astronomy, and even their own contradictions prove. That men in
after ages collected and bound together such of these books as they thought
proper and called them the Bible, and that these selfsame human beings,
at the Council of Nice, &c., rejected such other books as they thought
of less worthy note ; that these men were also as learned and wise as the
times would permit, but not infallible and possibly not altogether withottt
prejudice or partiality.
I believe real Christianity to be absolute religion, which thinks and
ivorks ; goodness towards man, and piety towards God; undogmatic, un
sectarian, liberal, broad and free, preached with faith and applied to life,
being good and doing good. There is but one real religion, which we need
only open our eyes to see, and 5vhich requires neither creeds nor catechisms
to discern; only live it, in love to God and man, and we are blessed by
Him who liveth for ever, in spite of all that priests and their dupes may say
to the contrary, for thank God they are not to be our judges, other
wise few would escape.
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Victorian Blogging
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
Creator
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018
Publisher
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Original Format
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Pamphlet
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Religion. To the editor of the "Hackney and Kingsland Gazette."
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Conner, W.E.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
[1865]
Publisher
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[s.n.]
Subject
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Theology
Religion
Rights
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<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (Religion. To the editor of the "Hackney and Kingsland Gazette."), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
Identifier
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G5257
Format
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application/pdf
Type
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Text
Language
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English
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: [s.l.]
Collation: 2 p. ; 22 cm.
Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. A letter to the editor of the Hackney and Kingsland Gazette. Pencilled inscription on front page below the printed 'yours respectfully C.' : 'W.E. Conner, formerly of So. Pl. Chapel". An illegible word pencilled opposite the Conner signature. Reprinted from the Hackney and Kingsland Gazette, October 7, 1865. Ink stain on front page.
Christianity
Conway Tracts
Rationalism