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    Feb. 1, 1851.] ffitl * ft-*Jlfr*r* ™7

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    tiUxaintt.

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    Critics axe not the legislators, but the...

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    Expectation stands tiptoe to greet Bobbo...

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    Our readers had a glimpse of the philoso...

• Transcript

  • Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.

    Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.

    Social Reform. Epibtoijh O B 8 O V It O ...

    that language treats only of petty squabbles between the representatives of " interests "; and they use not the native-born tongue of flesh and blood which every man of us that has sucked his mother ' s milk can understand and answer to , with every thought of our brow and every throb of our veins j but the technical jargon of so-called sciences , the cant of sect , or the worse cant of political indiffe-r rentism . A language which is small in its ideas , cold in its feeling , invidious in its constructions ; is not the language of the People exclusively , but is the language , of politicians in whatsoever class . It is not because our public writers and speakers

    use long words wjth Latin roots and over-refine in French-English , that the working classes do not understand our educated classes : it is because those classes do not speak of substantial things , because they flinch from speaking to natural feeling . For example , when it is a question whether right measures have been taken to secure for every honest able man equal opportunity with his fellows to earn subsistence for himself , his mate , and his children by the sweat of his brow , they fall to talking of averages , of imports and exports , " aggregate amount of cereals , " and such like jargon , which

    may tell us that there is plenty of food within the four seas for the whole mass of the People , but does not gainsay the notorious fact , that the food does not reach the hungry stomachs of the People . Say that , so long as the land is unexhausted , the first charge upon it must be the subsistence for the People born to the land , and you are answered with some jargon about " proprietary rights . " The People do not understand this language , which is " educated" language . And left to themselves by other classes , they have fallen , like those other classes , into a dialect or cant of their own .

    But there is , I say . , a broad substantial language overriding the whole of these classes , speaking in the tongue of our common nature ; and , if we have forgotten to speak that language , the fault lies less in the dulness or ill-training of the People than in the degeneracy of patriotism , which has fallen away from the mother tongue . It may be true that you cannot serve the People in the language to which the People has been abandoned : but reawaken the ear to the sound of the half-forgotten tongue , which speaks to the People of their own feelings , and answers to them , and then you will see if you cannot serve the People in the language of the People .

    You must not pretend to be above their passions and their wishes . The passions are born to them , and they have a right to the wishes . You must speak to them of substantial things . Tell them that every man born of woman knows what hunger is , and that you will not rest while things are so that one is over-full and another empty . Tell them that this broad land on which the sun shines , over which the winds and the rain sweep from end to end , belongs to all , though it has been parcelled out on the pretext of a trust to use it for all . Speak to them thus , and they will know that their instincts and the fact accord . Tell them , for they know it , that the fiction of our law is to make

    taxation coextensive with representation , but that , in fact , four out of five of us pay taxes without any representation at all . Speak to them , I say , in this broad substantial language , which they understand , and then they will be willing to hear what further you may have to say : nor will it be difficult totellthe remainderinthe same substantial language You say that the People will not support its own Leaders , and you stamp with not unmerited censure the puny patriotism which flinches from making almost the only sacrifice that can be made in our day—the sacrifice of money . I should put the

    case somewhat differently . Our long peace baa enervated men of action . Our flourishing trade has unduly exalted trading influences . Our numerous , but still exceptional , accumulations of wealth have continued and encreased the separation of classes , < 'yerj alter the feudal idea of clanship has departed . The opportunities of individual ambition have diminished — have almost given the precedency to prudential painstaking—a mercantile quality , lor these reasons men fitted , by the accidents f

    <> position or by training to take the lead of the People havo at once ccaaed to appreciate the necessity of a popular gathering at their back , and liiivo learned a selfish dislike to risk or sacrifice , 'nit in the h tag nation of political movement , in the "tter impossibility to make their blows tell , the »>« n of action of our day are rediscovering the fact that ofticiul men and their local retainers can beat them at the cbesa board games of election with a united suffrage , and that no real movement worth leading against the isat ' thfied party of Finality can be

    carried through , unless the Leaders have the People at their back . The low standard of public virtue which gives the lead , among the working classes , to the charlatanthe strong loud man— " the bloody bold Sansloy" or empty Bullcalf , is but the same thing with the low standard in other classes . In all classes the object with public men is less things or deeds than appearances . To gain the confidence of the working classes the proper appearance was that of boldness , zeal , or substantialness . Hence the loud bluster of which others paid the penalty , the plans for restoring the land to the People which could only give to the favoured few the blessing of an allotment or a litigation .

    To understand these difficulties is to discern our facilities . " The degeneracy of the race" is nonsense . Bad laws and trading ascendencies are doing their best to make us all paupers or puny shopmen . But old suits of armour , relics of our stalwart champions , are measures to prove that the staple of the race has not shrunk . " I cannot bring myself , " writes an excellent friend in the South , " to the popular notion in England of the degeneracy of the Italians as a People and of the permanent decadence of Italy . With a fine climate , a

    fertile soil , and a race physically not degenerate , I cannot see any reason to despair of seeing Italy resume its prosperity and occupy a worthy position among nations . " Surely as much may be said of the English People , overlaid though it has been by the classes that have monopolized the name , the resources , the Government of England , —the produce , the soil itself , and the " suffrages , " that is the wishes or permissions of the People . Yes , we have , however stunted and stifled , the same ambitions as of old among public men , the same

    energy and intelligence in the People . We see these inherent energies showing themselves , but separately , and , therefore , feebly in the surviving efforts of Chartism , in Financial and Parliamentary Reform , more vaguely and largely in the rising idea of Social Reform . The thing wanted to give life and vigour to these energies still struggling to rise above the surface is to bring the separated elements of political movement together . There needs no very cumbersome process or newlyinvented machinery for such a purpose .

    The first great step is to let public men , of whatsoever class , recognise the wants and wishes of the People , not as they exist in theories or are expressed in jargons , but as they exist in living flesh and blood , yearning with urgent wants or throbbing with great aspirations , and as they are expressed in the broad bold mother tongue . The People of England are half employed or overemployed , half-wageless , half-fed , mostly ill-lodged , all landless . Say so . Say it out . Say that you will do your best to secure them labour as the means of

    food , a hold on the land as the guarantee for both . Offer them those things , or as good as those , in plain terms . Propose some policy which shall be national in its scope , manifestly and tangibly beneficial to the people , and see then if they do not understand you , and if you do not obtain their cooperation . It is not necessary that organized agitations should depart from their purpose : the Chartists may still seek the Charter , Financial Reformers retrenchment ; but public men who wish to strengthen both those agitations will seek to do so by infusing greater boldness into the one , a more tangible add material bearing into the other .

    And they will seek a machinery by which the active politicians of every class may come together ; by which , without any servile dependency or precarious " compact , " they may come to a common understanding as to what each is doing , and so shape their own eourse that it shall at once receive and give the strength of a common drift in the general progress . It would not be more difficult to plan such a Political Exchange than it would be lo adopt a broad language intelligible to the whole People , and once more to bring out the People itself" to the back of public leaders , in forcing the Government forward .

    Let me recapitulate . These are the essentials of a national party and a national movement : —To adopt the native mother tongue , ever eloquent in the wants and wishes of the People , never unintelligible to the sons of the soil ; to advance a policy diroetly and explicitly meeting those wants and wishes , materially as well as morall y : to trust in principles once adopted , and follow them through ; to establish a common understanding among the Holdiers of progress . Ever , my dear Holyoake , your firm friend and fellow-workman , Thornton Hunt .

    Feb. 1, 1851.] Ffitl * Ft-*Jlfr*R* ™7

    Feb . 1 , 1851 . ] ffitl * ft- * Jlfr * r * ™ 7

    Tiuxaintt.

    tiUxaintt .

    Critics Axe Not The Legislators, But The...

    Critics axe not the legislators , but the radges and polic * of literature . They do not make laws—they interpret and try to enforce them . —Edinburgh Review .

    Expectation Stands Tiptoe To Greet Bobbo...

    Expectation stands tiptoe to greet Bobbow's long-promised autobiography , which is almost the only book announced that seems likely to make a noise . After a two-years" delay it is now positively said to be ready . Beyond that Literature seems uneventful . Parliament is about to begin its labours , and the Papal Aggression gains fresh intensity as a public question , the old trash being repeated with new emphasis . Mr . Greenwood ' s pamphlet on

    Protestant Churches is lauded in the Time * . but that Journal does not inform its readers how England has brought this " aggression" on herself by her stupid bigotry in refusing the Concordat offered at the last settlement of Europe . Are our readers all aware that in no other country , not even Catholic , could such an " aggression" have taken place , simply because the Concordat gives to the temporal sovereign of each country the power of veto ? An

    anecdote will illustrate this : Some years ago the Law Professor , Dollineb , was expounding the law of marriage at Vienna , and he wound up with stating that after the civil contract had been fulfilled , the blessing of the priest , though it might be desirable , was by no means necessary to constitute a legal marriage ; nay more , that there was nothing in the Canon Law which made the priestly blessing necessary . For this the Pope placed the Professor under the ban . Dolliner obtained an interview with the Emperor to complain of this excommunication , his crime being simply that of expounding the law as it stood . , The _ Emperor smiled and answered , " But I have not sanctioned this Bull ; put it in your pocket ; it must first have my sanction . " Dolliner placed the Bull in a frame and hung it up in his study . We were offered a Concordat which would have made the consent of Government a necessary part of any innovation ; but like pious Protestants we refused to have anything to do with the Scarlet Lady , and now we complain of her taking us by surprise !

    Our Readers Had A Glimpse Of The Philoso...

    Our readers had a glimpse of the philosophy set forth in Time , the Avenger , and may remember that we predicted it would be eulogized for its profundity . So it has turned out . One enthusiastic writer actually says of it , that " It appeals to the intellectual , the reflective , the pious : it has a lofty purpose ; it is not to be read and thrown aside , but treasured and reread as a lesson of virtue taught by example . " De gustibus , Sfc . ; but one would like to know the names of such critics , though we very much doubt whether praise would be squandered so recklessly if men had to endorse it with their names , because in that case one would have a measure of the man ' s ability . The mask hides many a blush . Mentioning critics , leads us to the prince of feuilletonistes , Jui . es Janin , who figures , incidentally , this week in a law court . It appears that the manager of the Varietes deprived J . J . of his right of admission , which furnished Janin with a humorous feuilleton deploring his unhappy condition at being thus deprived of ho immense a favour . The Siuvle was angry at thin iiiNiilt offered to the first of critics , the pride of the feuilleton , and proposed that all the critics should henceforth ignore tho Variety altogether . This became alarming , and the manager wrote . a letter to the Siecle , saying that ho had deprived J . J . of hi « entrees , because he had refused to notice the theatre , unless an actress , whom be favoured , were reengaged there . The Siiicle , knowing this to be false , refused insertion to tho letter , and an action was brought to make it do so . But the judge gave a negative to the application , and condemned the manager to CO 3 ts .

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), Feb. 1, 1851, page 11, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_01021851/page/11/