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agitation Mr . Cobden ' s attention was mainly directed to the agr icultural branch of the question . His shrewd , practical intellect clearly saw the evils arising from the mismanagement of the land . Many of his best speeches at that time were those in which he pointed out the shortsighted selfishness of the landlords in the management of their which the
estates , and the unbusinesslike way m farmers allowed themselves to be trammelled in the cultivation of the soil . But his object then was not to enquire into the origin of those evils or to point out the best mode of removing them . Like many other men , he probably believed that the dependent position of the farmer was chiefly owinff to the food monopoly , and that were the
Corn Law repealed the mischievous powers oi the landlord would be greatly curtailed , if not entirely annihilated . A little more experience and observation must have convinced him , as they have many others , thafc those evils lie too deep and too widely ramified to be eradicated by such a measure as the abolition of the Corn Law . One great step , however , was gained in the diof that
rection of Land Reform by the passing measure . Now that trade in grain is free , men are disposed to make a more accurate estimate of the great value of agriculture than they did previously . They no longer view it merely as a great branch of industry , yielding £ 50 , 000 , 000 of annual rental to some 30 , 000 landlords , but as the great national estate , upon the wise management of which the welfare of the whole community most materially
depends . This , we are glad to see , is the view which the Economist has begun to take of the land question . It has discovered that" the passion for territorial aggrandizement in this country has had the effect of rendering the majority of landowners little more than nominal landowners "; and as it agrees with Mr . Mill , that the landowner should be " legally compelled to make his interest and pleasure consistent with the public good , " we naturally conclude that our contemporary must be prepared to advocate a larger amount of interference on the part of Government than is quite
consistent with its favourite dogma of laissez faire . Although it has not yet ventured to point out a remedy for " the abuse of the right of property in land , " it freely admits that " nothing but a full and frank discussion of the whole bearings of nominal landowning is necessary to render the mischievous character of our territorial system apparent and admitted . " We trust that that discussion will be carried on fearlessly , even though it should involve the settlement of many other questions of Social Reform , in which Free Traders take little interest at present . If Mr . Bright and Mr . Cobden are destined to become once more the leaders of a great national movement , it is in this direction that they must go .
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mr . disraeli ' s wuiggery . In the debate on Mr . Locke King ' s motion for the extension of the Franchise , last week , Mr . Disraeli made one of his characteristic , sneering attacks upon the Parliamentary Reformers , which provoked Sir Benjamin Hall to remind him that he had once been a very decided Whig himself . This charge was indignantly denied by the member for Buckinghamshire . Speaking of his address to the electors of Marylebone , he said he had no recollection of ever having used any expression in it which was not in perfect unison with his present political
opinions . Unfortunately for Mr . Disraeli , one of his old supporters in Marylebone has found a copy of his address to the electors of that borough , in which he declares his belief that the conduct of the Government can never be in harmony with the feelings of the people until Triennial Parliaments and Vote by Ballot have been conceded to them . Among minor measures which he promises to support : irc—Abolition of the taxes on knowledge , a transfer of the public burdens from industry to property , and a
speedy and material reduction of taxation , although the annuul amount of the public expenditure then was seven or eight millions sterling less than it is at present . No one will deny that Mr . Disraeli had a perfect right to change his opinion on these points ; but , considering that he held hucIi doctrines in 1833 , it is not very prudent in him to indulge in sarcastic attacks upon men who only differ from him in continuing to hold the same opinions in 1850 which they held twenty years ago .
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HOW TO SENU YOUH LETTERS ON SUNDAY . ' Vauious expedients arc offered to the public as substitutes for the Post-office on Sundays . Companies undertake the conveyance of letters ; newsagents in some towns have adopted a very simple device , which brings thorn in a revenue . They keep w , box in their shops open ; any customer who pleases may take the liberty oi
depositing in this box letters properly stamped , and accompanied by loose pence , one penny to each , letter ; the letters so found there are packed up in a parcel and sent by railway to a correspondent in the town to which they are directed : he opens the parcel , and takes the liberty of posting all of those stamped , even on the Sunday ; they are found betimes on Monday morning by the official people , and sorted and delivered in due course . No doubt this occasions a vast amount of labour on the
Sabbath , which was saved when all the work was done by the practised and well-considered organization of the Post-office . But if private newsmen , little blackguard boys from ragged schools , and other abandoned characters in indefinite numbers , subject themselves to the ulterior penalty of eternal torment for the pence which the Post-office foregoes , Lord Ashley has the satisfaction of reflecting that he has coerced the elect few of the Post-office into " everlasting redemption . "
An order from the General Post-office , however , suggests an expedient for saving this increase of Sunday labour which he and his accomplice , Lord John Russell , have brought about . It seems that the letters directed to Cabinet Ministers , or the officers of Government , are not to be detained , but are still " to be forwarded on Sunday by the ordinary despatch . " Now , as Lord John Russell has been a party to the hindrance of letters on
Sunday ; as he avows that he is quite aware of the inconvenience ; and as he is a very honourable and welldisposed man , it is to be presumed that he will not evade any offer on this point which might tend to mitigate the inconvenience . We would suggest , therefore , that any persons who have letters to be transmitted on the Sunday , should direct them to the care of Lord John Russell , and no doubt he will see to their being properly posted early on Monday morning .
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There is no learned man but will confess he hath much profited bv reading controversies , his senses awakened , and his judgment sharpened . If , then , it be profitable for him to read , why should it noL , at least , be tolerable for his advcrsai-y to write . —Milton .
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THE RULING IDEA OF SOCIETY . London , June 25 , 1850 . Sib , —There is an idea now almost universally prevailing , and which , is cherished as most sacredly true and most essential to the good order and happiness of society ; which is yet most demonstrably false , and proved to be so by continually recurring facts , and is most destructive of rationality , goodness , and happiness in man ;—so destructive of rationality that no individual in whom it exists can by possibility acquire an accurate knowledge of human nature , or of the real interests of man ; or true ideas of right and wrong , or of justice and injustice ; or
correct conceptions on the all-important subject of Education , or in relation to the institutions which would be the most conducive to human welfare and happiness ;—so destructive of goodness that the moral feelings , being of necessity most materially modified by the false notions which are thus continually generated and encouraged , are thereby most essentially perverted and deteriorated;—so destructive of happiness that man , being thus continually misled by erroneous ideas and unjust and injurious feelings , is thereby constantly impelled to oppose and destroy his own happiness and the happiness of others most extensively and effectually . All the ideas and associations of ideas of
individuals and society , and all our social arrangements and proceedings , nre now pervaded and disordered by this most false and injurious idea ; and it is owing to this idea alone that the incessant aspirations and exertions of mankind for the attainment of wisdom , goodness , and happiness , have been , so far , continually frustrated , and have produced only failure and disappointment to an extent which has caused it to be imagined that wisdom , goodness , and happiness aro unattainable in this world ; and so , indeed , they nro and must continue to be , so long as this fatal error shall be retained .
All are now bo accustomed to regard this idea as most undoubtedly true , that great difficulty is at first experienced in comprehending the facts and the reasonings from them which demonstrate it to be false ,
although , when these facts and reasonings are once understood , they are found to be most simple and self-evident . The associations of ideas , too , ;—the false notions of human nature and interests—of right and wrong , of justice and injustice , &c , —which have been generated by this leading idea , have become so engrafted , as it were , in all , that , even when their erroneousness has been proved by the exposure of the falsehood of the parent idea , it is not without great mental exertion that they can be unassociated
and discarded ; and the same is the case with the irrational sentiments and feelings which have been created by those false notions , and with the injurious practices which have emanated from those false notions and irrational sentiments and feelings . But all these false and injurious notions and feelings must be dispelled , together with the fundamental idea by which they are generated , before the understanding and the moral feelings can become sound , and rational ; and all the actions thereby occasioned must be discontinued before the true road to
the happiness of the human race can be found . So overwhelmingly powerful for evil is this one single false idea , —so magnificently and universally influential for good will be the opposite true idea , when it shall be established , and shall have become the leading idea of the thoughts , feelings , and conduct of mankind . To demonstrate the truth of these statements—to enable the leading minds of society to perceive the falsehood and injuriousness of the now cherished fundamental idea , and to understand the truth and the inestimable value of the hitherto neglected and despised opposing idea or knowledge , and the
allimportant consequences to which it will lead—is * by far the greatest benefit that can be effected for society at this day ; for it will open to all the gates of a world of intelligence , goodness , and happiness , far exceeding the highest conceptions of minds irrationalized and perverted by the fatal mistake which has hitherto prevailed among men , disordering and paralyzing even the finest intellectual and moral powers and tendencies which have ever been given to the most highly favoured of human beings . May I , Sir , be permitted to occupy a portion of your " Open Council" in endeavouring to explain these subjects ? Henry Travis , M . D .
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THE LOST KEYS . —No . II . July 16 , 1850 . Sir ,- — Before entering upon the explanation of the horses of heaven and the horses referred to in the book of Heaven—the Bible : it will be as well to offer a few observations relative to the saviour of our world's nature—the sun . To tell the creedist that the sun and the saviour of man are one and the
same , would be to shock his feelings , and induce a belief that a wanton outrage had been perpetrated : that even such a thought was bordering on blasphemy ; therefore to do so is assuredly not my intention . But let a man ' s religion be what it may—let him believe in Christ , Mahomed , Zoroaster , or Budha—admitting all the leaders of every creed had appeared on this earth as saviours of men , possessing in themselves divine as well as carnal attributes , can there be found a more glorious type of such saviours than is offered to us in the leader of the heavenly host ? Does not that glorious object create all , preserve and destroy all , our world's nature ?—or could man live an instant without that saviour ' s divine influence ? Does not that saviour give life and light ?
" Then spake Jesus saying , I am the light of the world : he that folioweth me shall not walk in darkness , but shall have the light of life . "—John viii . 12 . What reasonable man can grovellingly bow the head and bend the knee before the sculptured personification of a saviour or a saint ? Is there reason in " Saying to a stock , Thou art my father ; and to a stone , Thou hast brought me forth . "—Jer . ii . 27 .
Man ' s brain created the saint , and his hands have personified his God . By false education man has been taught to believe that the sun , moon , and stats are less estimable in the eyes of the great Omnipotent than he is himself . He will readily believe that the multitudes of infinite heaven were created when his first parents were brought into existence ; he considers himself equally as worthy of divine protection as the whole of the heavenly host , and that he is created like unto God by the will of the omnipotent father ;—nothing , in fact , is superior to him in creation , and yet a creedist would be shocked were he to be told that he also was as much the begotten son of God as was the Saviour Jesus . If we reason , we
become convinced that it is far more sublime to imagine ) that the scriptural characters were of eternal celestial incorruption , and not of earthly corruption . The miracles of all the saints and all the saviours , what are they when compared to the countless myriads of miracles that are momentarily being performed by nature through the influence or the saviour of nature , the sun ? The learned mystagogue " John" well knew that the initiated alone could understand what he meant when he finished his book by saying 11 there are also many other things which Jesus
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Leader (1850-1860), July 20, 1850, page 396, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1847/page/12/
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