On this page
-
Text (6)
-
Oct. 26, 1850.] ©!> * It *« fre t* 733
-
PUBLIC SCHOOL MORALITY. In our " Open Co...
-
GUTTA FEttCIIA. "When Mr. Thomas Lobb di...
-
A HINT TO CAPITALISTS. With money so ver...
-
RUINOUSLY IjOW PRICES. The Times tries t...
-
SOCIAL REFORM. EPISTOLiE OBSCUROKUM VIRO...
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.
-
-
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.
Confusion Of Crime. To Few Families Has ...
expose still more harshly the miserable state of our laws regulating land and labour—which alienate industry from the soil , refuse labour protection and convert it into outlawry , and treat the want thus fostered as crime . It is for these reasons , in great part , that our laws are kept so incomplete : our lawmakers dare not enforce justice , lest the injustice should become intolerable , and oppression should provoke a servile rebellion .
Oct. 26, 1850.] ©!> * It *« Fre T* 733
Oct . , 1850 . ] ©!> * It *« fre t * 733
Public School Morality. In Our " Open Co...
PUBLIC SCHOOL MORALITY . In our " Open Council" has arisen a discussion on a subject difficult to handle without doing harm rather than good , and yet so vitally important that , with all its difficulties , it must be handled frankly and effectively . We have a letter on the subject this week by a man who writes in the true spirit of courage and gravity . There are , however , three points which our correspondent has kept in the background as they are by almost all who write on the subject . He deplores the want of explanations to youth ; but the very object should be to avoid the necessity for such enlightenment . Physiological explanations to boys are as actively dangerous as the want of them , may be negatively . The second point is , that all cerebral excitement is directly injurious , in spite of the current fallacy involved in the demand for " occupation to the mind . " And the third is the necessity of avoiding all premature development of the instincts — a difficult task , but one which has been facilitated in various ways , under different forms of society . Healthy muscular development , such as bodily exercise promotes , tends to keep the vital forces expended in the process of strengthening and growth . At the same time , very strenuous bodily activity supplies the excitement which is natural to youth , and healthy in itself : and which also induces sound healthy repose . Unquestionably such training would involve , of course , an immense diminution in the amount of study ; but would that be an evil ? Would the boys turn out less instructed men ? It seems to us that lying at the root of the evils is the over-estimate of mere intellectual training , which is not the forte of many dispositions , and is not the sole requisite for any . But even the highest instruction does not need the enormous time wasted in bad methods of study—where a ton is taught for every ounce learned .
Gutta Fettciia. "When Mr. Thomas Lobb Di...
GUTTA FEttCIIA . "When Mr . Thomas Lobb discovered the " Percha" tree growing in the untrodden forests of Singapore , he little thought of the great benefit which that discovery would confer on mankind . The little plant had grown and blossomed , risen to maturity and decayed , among the solitary haunts of nature , known only to the natives , and but sparely used . A botanical missionary , pursuing his adventurous studies , discovered , and a learned doctor transmitted the first sample of gutta percha to England in 1813 . Since that period only seven years have elapsed ,
and we now find the gum of this obscure plant manufactured by European ingenuity into an incredible variety of useful articles . Gutta Percha is now employed in almost every department of science and manufactures . It envelopes the wire which conveys the electric current beneath the river and the ocean , and it performs the humble function of a " clothes-line . " Itcanaccommodateitself tothe slight feature of a bonnet-lining and the fringe for a mourningcoach . You may trample it under the soles of your feet , or set it upon the crown of your head . In the manufactory it appears as the Driving Band , and in the surgery you find it as a bandage ; and , as it exhibits itself alike
as a Nursing Apron and Coffin Lining , it may possibly accompany you from the cradle to the grave . In fact , it is a very tamed and conquered Proteus , taking upon itself all shapes , in obedience to the skill of man . In its adaptability to climates and enduring qualities , it surpasses leather for many useful purposes . In the sheet published by the Patentees , whose ingenious works would repay an inspection , the Gutta Percha Company enumerate as many as one hundred and thirty articles , in the manufacture of which gutta percha is employed . On the whole , few more useful discoveries have been made in these later days .
A Hint To Capitalists. With Money So Ver...
A HINT TO CAPITALISTS . With money so very plentiful as it has lately been , we wonder why no speculative capitalist has ever hit upon the notion of getting up a Joint-stock Land Company , for the purchase of large estates in Ireland , to bo sold again in small lots , at a moderate advance in price . In England such a company could not easily obtain land sufficient for its operations ; but in Ireland the quantity of land brought into the market , through the operation of the Encumbered Estates Bill , presents the finest
possible opportunity . Were such a company formed , with a capital of £ 1 , 000 , 000 or so , it might materially assist in elevating the condition of the Irish people . We hear complaints from all quarters of the immense numbers of small farmers who are hurrying away to the United States , to escape from landlordism and pauperism . Most of these emigrants are industrious men who have saved a little money . Few of them would leave Ireland if they saw any chance of being able to buy a small farm at a moderate price . A company of capitalists who would enable a few thousands of these thrifty , hardworking peasants to become owners of a small piece of land would be doing a laudable work , while promoting their own interests .
Ruinously Ijow Prices. The Times Tries T...
RUINOUSLY IjOW PRICES . The Times tries to persuade the farmers that they are not so badly off as they suppose , and , iu proof of this , it alleges that the prices of farm produce are not lower now than they were in the three years ending in 1836 . Of course the landowners will be glad to see the Times taking this course , as it furnishes an excuse for exacting as high rents as they received fifteen years ago . But " the leading journal" is considerably in error when it makes such a statement . During the three years to which it refers , the aggregate average price of wheat , barley , and oats was about twenty per cent , higher than it is at
present ; and yet , so great was the pressure upon the farmers , even with those higher prices , that a committee was appointed to enquire into the causes of agricultural distress . At that time we were importing no foreign grain at all . At present we are importing upwards of 1 , 000 , 000 quarters of grain and flour monthly . Here would be something for the Protectionists to point to as a cause of agricultural distress . But the landlords dare not ask for such a committee next session , because of the revelations regarding rent which would come out of it ; and the farmers have not pluck enough to petition for such an enquiry unless the landlords give them leave .
Social Reform. Epistolie Obscurokum Viro...
SOCIAL REFORM . EPISTOLiE OBSCUROKUM VIROItUU . XIV . —Communism as an Ideal To Stavbos Dilbekoglue . October 22 , 1850 . Dear Stavros , —I address this to you because I know how thoroughly you believe with me that all the restless struggles and ambitions which trouble the current of this our earthly ^ life would be little better than the hurrying agitation of an anthill , if we did not dignify them by the grandeur of our aspirations . Mean and petty were this life , with all its ignoble cares , if it were not for the
" Yearning for somethingafar From the sphere of our sorrow . " But these aspirations carry us forward out of the mere circle of daily needs and present desires , into the Future of the human race , and save us from scepticism or apathy by connecting the small items of our work with a magnificent whole . I am certain , Stavros , that you who have dignified your life by commerce with great thoughts , and saved yourself from despair by reliance on what is great and generous in our nature , must have often felt that
clouding of the mind such as comes over me when I reflect on the inability of Truth to get itself translated into Act , the painful prolixity in the movement of human progress , the complexity of the hindrances , the sluggishness and apathy of men more fatal than their stupidity or their cowardice . In such moods I sympathize with Cartyle—the stern and lonely thinker—and wish for autocratic power to sweep away these hindrances , gag the fools , and establish the truth as a despotic Fact But , falling back again into the current of calmer
thoughts , I recognize the inevitability of these hindrances , the impossibility of ever accelerating the velocity of human progression by any impetus ab extra , and the consequent necessity of dealing with humanity as we find it , rather than as we would have it . Society is a growth , and we must look to its culture , checking unwise impatience at the slowness of the growth , and relying on the certainty of Nature ' s laws to produce fruit in due time— " But while the grass grows—the proverb is somewhat musty . "
Ay , and here we feel the necessity of some consolatory faith , some reliance on an abstract conviction to sustain us while the grass grows ! Such a conviction is Communism to many . They know that Communism is an ideal , the realization of which is indefinitely distant . They know that society will not rise suddenly one fine morning and proclaim itself Communistic . They know that many , very many years , perhaps even generations , must pass away ere that can be ; years of trouble ,
of sorrow , of hope brightening with encreased conviction , of silent application familiarizing the minds of men , and insensibly throwing bridges over the chasm now dividing the old from the new , so that the change will scarcely seem a change . They know , moreover , that so long a transition-period , accompanied as it must be by such manifold and far-reaching modifications of opinion , of feeling , and of practice , will necessarily produce so profound an alteration in the condition of society , that it is as idle now to settle in advance the details of Communistic society as it would be to draw up a constitution for the inhabitants of the moon ; and
further , if it be idle to forecast arrangements , it is worse to forecast objections to a principle deriving those objections from presumed consequences , not from the principle itself . To combat the principle of Association is legitimate ; to combat it by fears of what it will lead to is irrational and vicious . In this letter I want to express clearly , if I can , the part which I conceive Communism will play in , the coming years , and in so doing urge the desirableness of all serious minds turning their serious attention to the doctrine , instead of declaiming against supposed " consequences , " and wasting ingenuity in vituperative syllogisms to prove the doctrine " odious " and its believers insurgents .
Communism , I often hear , is an ideal scheme . To me that is but a mediocre objection ; for , as I before hinted , I feel the imperious want of some ideal ( credible , of course ) which may dignify the politics of this our disorganized society ; some vision of a reign of justice and greater happiness , to relieve the sadness which oppresses us when we see opened the hideous sewers of our boasted civilization , and contemplate with loathing the black current of misery , hopelessness , and injustice which flows under our feet . Our prosperity
is a vine growing over a volcano . It is beautiful to see , but look not beneath ! Now , Communism , by appealing to the indestructible desire for justice within us—that which Immanuel Kant grandly said was one of the two things which struck him dumb—has in it a powerful element of success . But besides this moral impetus , the principle , viz ., " concert in division of employments , " Thornton Hunt defines it , is an intellectual formula which may be carried like a torch into all the social questions of the day , completing the doctrines of political oeconomy , hitherto at sea without a compass .
I am also told that it is an Utopia , a Chimaera , and many other things suggestive of contempt . Utopia , in Greek , means Nowhere ( ov toircq ) . But Communism is here—it is a reality—it lives among us both as Idea and Fact , with a vitality I have not observed in chimeeras . It exists as an ideal in the sense that Christianity is an ideal , and it exists as a reality in pretty nearly the same sense that Christianity is a reality , i . e . —very imperfectly developed .
As Thornton indicated in his last letter , a full and perfect realization of the one is no more to be found than it is of the other . But will any one say that the discrepancy constitutes an Utopia ? The doctrine is here , believed consciously by thousands , unconsciously by more ; applied in so many ways , on so vast a scale , and with such success that enemies often refer to these applications as a refutation , saying : " Why , we have Association already operating in society !"
Not , then , as an Utopia , but as a growing fact , must we accept Communism , though ugly names may be flung at it . The terror it created is fast disappearing as men become familiar with it . The first time Montgolfier sent up a balloon the frightened peasants among whom it descended thought it was a falling moon , and on discovering their mistake wreaked their vengeance by destroying it . An edict was published by the Government to calm the fears of peasants in future , and to forbid their destroying balloons . This bugbear has now
become a toy , and even children run out to see it with delight . Is not this the history of most innovations ? But let us be just even to the fears of men . The odium attached to Communism has mainly arisen from the unwise precipitation with which Communists have attempted to legislate for the future , constructing a framework of society before they
have gained either soil or population . So decidedly do I condemn all such schemes , that probably most sections of the Communist party would disown me as a recusant or an enemy . Yet I accept , without the slightest reservation , the doctrine , while condemning as unphilosophic and immature every system yet proposed . And this is the case with hundreds ; it is also the case with many who now strenuously oppose Communism , because they are
-
-
Citation
-
Leader (1850-1860), Oct. 26, 1850, page 13, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_26101850/page/13/
-