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Mat 19, 1855.] T H E Ii E A P E B. m
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TORY DEMOCRACY. When the Tories were las...
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MODERNT IMPERIALISM. It may be said of I...
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.
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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.
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The Middle Classes And The People. We Ar...
when they had risen against it , I am your leader , and thus to break up the people's camp , and destroy first the people ' s leaders , and then the credulous people ! The Cornlaws are no sooner repealed than they are forgotten ; and the men who imposed and maintained them are able to hold themselves out as the natural protectors of those whom , for their own selfish purposes , they deprived of bread . This is only the ninth year of untaxed food , and we are again threatened with an oligarchy of landlords supported by the lower classes ! Justice can never rest secure , and injustice need never despair .
"We cordially wish that the day for all class combinations were gone by , and that politics had become not a struggle of interests , but a science and function of humanity . But this day is distant . Throughout Europe there is a rally of despotism , feudalism , and Jesuitism , which , if it were successful , would bring back the middle ages . The powers of social evil hope to succeed by dividing the lower from the middle classes , a
result which they have partly achieved in other countries , and which we earnestly pray they may not achieve here . "We cannot deny that it is a natural error in the lower classes to refer their wrongs to those who are immediately above them , and with whom , as being immediately above them , they must sometimes come into collision . It is a natural error , but it is a fatal one , and if it prevailed it would be the * ruin of all .
Mat 19, 1855.] T H E Ii E A P E B. M
Mat 19 , 1855 . ] T H E Ii E A P E B . m
Tory Democracy. When The Tories Were Las...
TORY DEMOCRACY . When the Tories were last in power their object was to stem democracy . Now that they are aspiring to power they are democrats themselves ; they rail at Whig oligarchy , and try to fill their sails with the wind of Administrative Reform . And we believe there are some Liberals simple enough to be caught by this Jesuitism , and thoughtless enough to be willing to deliver the nation into Tory hands . What is the history of Toryism . ? Common sense bids us judge the party by the actions of a century and a half—not by the lin professions of an hour . What great act oi toleration , political reform , or social justice have not the Tories opposed ? What measure of Administrative Reform ever emanated from that party ? What principles are associated with the names of Bolingbboke , Pitt , Eldon , Liverpool , Castlebeagii ,
Sidmouth ? Who were the oppressors of the Nonconformists , of the Roman Catholics , of Ireland ? Who are the supporters even at this day , whenever opportunity offers , of the last remnants of religious disability ? Who imposed the Corn Laws , and were only driven by main force to relinquish them ? Or , to turn to the more urgent subject of diplomacy , what associations are connected with the memory of the Holy Alliance ?
The historic Tories would have us believe that there has been a grand mistake about Toryism this century and a half , and they tender us as the genuine article a political philosophy borrowed from the old rag-shop of Bolingbroke ' s pamphlets . Bolinobroke was an infidel who used religious bigotry and persecution as an instrument of his infamous
political ambition ; and wo believe he may not be without a counterpart among the Tories of the present clay . However , when the Tory party have changed their principles , whether in the historical or democratic sense , we shall bo glad to bo informed of it . At present we aeo no great change cither in Mr . oPoonbb or the country gentlemen . Thoy appear to us to act , though under adverse circumstances , on the traditional principles of bigotry and injustice . And until there is a
general and open conversion , in spite of radical programmes and rag-shop philosophies , we may be permitted to decline selling ourselves into their hands . As for Whig oligarchy , the Whig families are few , because very few aristocrats cap be found to cast in their lot with the people . Their social exclusiveness arises not a little from their having been almost tabooed by the rest of their order at the time of the Revolutionary War for refusing to take part in that infamous
crusade of the Tory lords and parsons against libertv and truth . The worst oligarchy is not that of familv connexion , but of class interest . The Whigs . ' are detested by their class for having been on some great occasions glorious traitors to class interests . It is for this , and because they still profess popular principles , and appeal to popular support , that the Tories hate them , not for their aristocratic exclusiveness . When they became less exclusive and took in Sir W . Moleswobth and
Mr . Gii ad stone , the Tories did their very best , by all kinds of sneaking artifices , to awaken their jealousy against their new associates , and drive them back into their exclusiveness again . As to the idea that the Tories are the right party to carry on a war , which we are told is gaining ground , it is utterly baseless . Mablbobougii was a Whig , Chatham was a Whig . And the traitors who sold the fruits of their
victories were Tories — Bolingbboke and Bute . The Revolutionary War was carried on not for national but for class purposes , and therefore the Tories entered very heartily into it , and lavished on it the blood and treasure of the nation ; but they mismanaged it in every possible manner , and nothing but the genius of Wellington , who was raised in the first instance not by his genius but by his family , saved them from utter discomfiture . There is nothing in the history of the party to justify the notion that the war ought to be committed to them ; and there is
nothing in -the character of their present leaders . Dexterity in low intrigue , malignant libelling , and flashy rhetoric , are not generally associated with noble constancy and public virtue . As to their Heaven-sent Minister-of-War , he has miserably foundered . It is not our business to write up Whigs or to write down Tories . But it is our business , as far as we can , to prevent Liberals from falling into a trap , and rewarding at the expense of their cause political Jesuitism of the lowest kind .
Modernt Imperialism. It May Be Said Of I...
MODERNT IMPERIALISM . It may be said of Imperialism as it was said of Proudhonism , that it unites two qualities seldom found in the same theory , being at once visionary and gross . Gross it is in the highest degree . It aims merely at mechanical order and material prosperity , and to these it sacrifices the noblest achievements aud the highest duties of humanity . It is the exceed of men without endurance and without faith .
It is the creod of an age wearied with political struggles , and ready on any pretence to spare itself the last effort and sink back into the state from which it has painfully emerged . It emanates , naturally enough , from that country which has suffered moat from the excesses of liberty . It is embodied in a nephew and imitator of that political miscreant , who with cold and atheistical cunning , turned to his own selfish purposes the agony of tho Revolution .
Yot those who seek material advantage at the price of any moral sacrifice , and who , therefore , ought at least to bo practical , nro unable to explain tho simplest mechanism of their plan . How is their Emperor to bo elected and their Empire established ? Ojesab rose out of universal ruin . Napoleon I . out
of a national agony . Napoleon III . out of a coup d'etat for which he had p repared the way by intrigue . Is society to throw itself into convulsions in order that a Dictator may arise ? And when the Dictator has arisen , how are we to meet the difficulty ' of the succession ? Are we to sink again into the fatalism of hereditary dynasties , and trust the fortunes of humanity to the accident of birbh in a family which will be constantly undergoing the corrupting and maddening influence of a despotic throne ? Or is a nation deprived of all political action , and therefore of all political intelligence and virtue , to be
called upon at each vacancy to repeat an election for which the highest political intelligence and virtue would be required ? It is not difficult to predict the practical result . Dynasties would be founded , as in the case of CJesab , Napoleon I ., and Napoleon III . Perhaps the succession would sometimes be varied as in Russia , by intrigue and assassination . Perhaps there might be added , as at Rome , an occasional civil war , to reward those who sacrifice duty and morality to peace . Over all would hang the power of the army , praetorians devoid of patriotism , and masters alike of the throne and of the nation .
You fancy that these Empires would not be like common monarchies ; that "they would be friends to freedom of thought and social progress , and that in them Democracy would ascend the throne . What ground have you , either from reason or from experience , for supposing that this democratic character will last , even if it be assumed in the first moments of vacillating power ? The Ernperors will have a court , an aristocracy , however upstart , all the appanages and environments of dynastic state ; they will have their matrimonial alliances and cordial
understandings with foreign dynasties . Louis Quatobze himself had no more . Amidst the splendours of Versailles , worshipped by Mobny and Montebello , with the Garter on his knee , and caressed by English aristocracy and monarchy , will Napoleon III . remember his democratic mission ? Will Napoleon IV . ? Will Napoleon XIV . ? Feudal monarchy itself was in its origin elective and democratic . You , philosophers as you are , trust that human nature will be reversed by the official title " Emperor by the Will of the People" on the coins of a monarch who calls himself the Third iu virtue of
dynastic succession through a puppet . As to freedom of thought , it is the proved enemy of despotism . A state creed protected by the sword is one of the first needs of a despot . The Cjesabs had a State Polytheism , in the interest of which they persecuted philosophy and Christianity . Napoleon I . restored Popery , discouraged philosophy , banished Madame de Stael , and did his best to destroy all that was noble and
free in education . Napoleon III . in this , as in other respects , is a faithful , though puny , imitator of tho colossal meannoss of his uncle . What , indeed , independently of the political necessities of despotism , requires more generosity of soul tluin thorough toleration ? And who can expect generosity of soul in a man lapped in regal luxury , surrounded by Court eunuchs , taught every hour to regard his will as law , and hiu opinion infallibility ?
as . , Look again , wo say , at what has already happened in Franco . Look at that empire , just sprung from a revolution , and bnaing itself on universal suffrage . Jh it not already in every respect like tho vile and unmoral tyrannies Avhich humanity has Btrugglod and bled to overthrow P Are not falsehood , sycophancy , corruption , espionage , rankly llourishing round it ? Has it not gagged all expression of opinion , oven tho opinion ot
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), May 19, 1855, page 13, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_19051855/page/13/
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