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    likely enough they do . It is , in point of fact , but right that they should . We . would not give much for either of them if they did not . But are we for all that entitled to interfere with them so long as their plotting rests on mere presumption ? Are we to open their letters merel y because the Austrian ambassador gays they contain treasonable matter ? Are we to issue warrants for their apprehensionexpulsion being altogether out of the question—for even felons are transported , not banished—because the Pope has seized some papers purporting to be shares of the Mazzini loan ? Are we to have

    recourse to the desperate measure of domiciliary visits , because the Austrian ambassador assures us that Mazzini has given large orders to some of our Birmingham gunsmiths ? What , in Heaven ' s name , is the Austrian ambassador to us ? Is this Constantinople , or Tangiers , or Timbuctoo , where aliens are subjected to the jurisdiction of their respective diplomatic agents ? We hear , indeed , of shabby tricks being played upon inoffensive strangers in Republican France , of refugees of high character being roused from their slumbers at dead of night , and gensdarmes rummaging their drawers , poking their noses into their papers , only to find out that the persons subjected to such vexatious proceedings have no hand in any conspiracy

    either against France or against any of her neighbours . But we—God help us ! should we stand by and see such things done in this country ? Alas ! too much has already been done which it is in vain for us to wish undone . A sneaking Secretary of State has been found willing to oblige foreign Governments by a dirty trick for which men had their right hand burnt in the good old times . But that was years ago , under that Tory rule which Lord Lyndhurst would fain bring back upon us . We have not forgotten the trick , however , nor forgiven . Sooner will our tongue forget its English , sooner will we see the Russian and Austrian eagle wave on the White Tower , or hear the roll of the Prussian drum at the Horse

    Guards , than forget or forgive Sir James Graham , and the indelible stain he inflicted upon us . Let his name be shouted aloud now : let his guilt be visited on any man that would only throw out a hint at the repetition of such deeds of dastardly subserviency . Espionage is no English word ; even the term police our Saxon fathers were unacquainted with We do not know ourselves the French and Austrian extent of its meaning ; thank Heaven , we never shall . Our constabulary have no hold even upon thieves except on the strongest presumption being established against them .

    Let the Austrian ambassador apply to a magistrate for the apprehension of Mazzini or Klapka if he can substantiate any charge against either of them . But as for the Alien Bill—what next ? Why , Mazzini and Klapka will then apply for the ejection of his Austrian Excellency , or of the Duke of Parma , Cardinal Wiseman , or General Haynau . And how are we to decide between them ?

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    NOT PROTECTION , BUT CONCERT . Lord Stanley has spoken , and many who were looking lorward with hope to the dinner at Merchant Tailors ' -hall , will look back with surprise at their own hope . His vague promises of some Protection if possible , his resolve to resist all " revolutionary , " that is effectual extensions of the franchise , will disabuse , at least , such of the working classes us have been casting an eye towards

    Protection and what it may do for them . We do not wonder that they have cast a wishful glance ; when the Liberals have sent them to the one-sided , hardhearted doctrine of self-reliance amid laws made to cripple and oppress them ; and when the responsible Ministers show such total impotency to serve the People . Yes , after all , the working classes must rely upon themselves ; only it must be u reliance of themselves severally , upon themselves collectivelyupon the People .

    To Lord Stanley ' s speech let un refer the authors of " An Address of the Metropolitan Trades Delegates to the Working Classes of Great Britain and Ireland . " The object of the addresy , aw we read it , is to impress upon the working men , that all the evils from which they are suffering are the result of the recent Free-Trade legislation , and are to bo cured by a return to a , Protective policy . We believo such a doctrine to bo most erroneous , and most likely to turn away the attention of those whom tho Trades Delegates represent from the real cauNfftt of their present condition and their true remedies . Atycr stating the numbers and condition of the ; London workinir men , tlua address declares that

    they are denied their right to labour ; a fact which is , alas V too true ; but which existed in the palmiest day 8 of monopoly , at least as much as now . The address goes ojo to say that "it should he the first and most important duty ojF a wise government to adopt such measures as will best secure employ naent to the entire population , and for their labour an abundance of the necessaries and comforts of life . " Nothing can be more true ; but how do the Trades Delegates recommend that it should be

    done ? By an improved Poor Law ? by the . gradual organization of labour on Associative principles ? by dealing boldly with the land question ? Not at all ; but by following the guidance of Lord Stanley and Mr . Gr . F . Young , and returning to VI a Protective policy , so that you , fellow countrymen , may be enabled to live by your labour . " Such an object is the rnost desirable of all objects—and doubtless it would be immensely facilitated by doubling the price of bread and of all "the necessaries and comforts of life ' ' *

    A " Protective Policy" to be worthy the name must be one of universal protection : and do the framers of this address really believe that such a system as that which they indicate would enable their fellow countrymen to live better by their labour than they do now ? Do they think that wages would rise in proportion to the rise in the price of the protected articles ? and if wages did so rise , by what exploded sophism would they maintain that any one could be the better for having higher wages , when the price of everything was proportionately higher ? Do

    they mean to assert that in consequence of Free Trade wages have fallen in an equal ratio with the price of corn and the other necessaries or life ? Why , the agricultural labourers have found out by this time , that even to them—the class whose wages have in the last three years fallen far lower than any other—Free Trade is a blessing , and that wages Cannot fall in proportion to the fall , in the price of bread . In many parts of England—in spite of all that landlords in the House of Commons and out of it may say—they would be ready to rise in open resistance to any attempt to reenfbrce a duty

    on corn . The reduction of wages in some trades , which is noticed in the address , is not the result of Free Trade , but of thatwar-to-the-knife , competition between man and man , and of the systematic protection of capital and property against labour , which is almost the sole object of legislation in the present daj r . This reduction of wages began before Free Trade became the rule of the commercial policy of this country ; and the remedy is to be found , not in Protection , but in cooperation , two things which , despite the contrary assertions of the Maccullochs and Bastiats , are diametrically opposed to each other .

    One , at least , of the names at the bottom of the address , we believe to be that of a Socialist ; and we cannot understand how a believer in the great principle of Concert , or of the advantage and necessity of men ' s acting together , can support a theory whose fundamental principle is to " protect" every man against every on © else . To build barriers round each country and round each tirade

    in the country , is surely not Association . To foster fictitious secondary employments , and by high protective duties , to keep up prices ruinous to the poor consumer , enabling them just to diag on an unhealthy existence , is surely not Socialism . To maintain the bread of the people at an unnaturally high price for the benefit of idle Landlords ami bad-cultivating Farmers , is surely in noway "to enable them to live . "

    No ; a return to the worn-out and selfish policy of Protection in impossible . The working men of Great Britain and Ireland must look forward to the gradual and steady carrying out of the cooperative principle , to the effectual' recognition of the right to labour so ably defended in our own papers by W . K . Forster , and to the solution of that great problem , which is now in one way or other occupying almost every man ' s mind , the land ; let them not look backward to a wystem under whicV they wore no more able " to live by their labour" and escape " the pauper ' s badge / ' than they are now ; but which tends inevitably to encourage the employment ° f labour on the leas productive , branches of industry , with . the . accessary accompaniment of artificially high prices .

    We do not for a moment doubt the Hincerity of tho Trades Delegates , or their earnest desiro to'aid tho good cause of the ( mancipation of labour ; but we would warn the working rlasseH not to fillow thcinaulvcH to be milled into joining a Protectionist

    cry , which can benefit none but a few landlords , farmers , and shopkeepers ; which would , if successful , be most injurious to themselves ; which would only tend to split into hostile factions the best and most earnest friends of Social and Political Reform , and would be used by the people ' s worst enemies as an additional means of keeping them still longe from their rights . G . R .

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    BAD FAITH . Sir James Graham makes an admirable and convincing speech on the subject of non-intervention in religious affairs , and everybody cries out against his " cunning . " The more hi £ arguments speak for themselves the greater the suspicion that he has some " deep" design . A syllogism suggests doubts greater than its convincingness , and a Q . E . D . establishes duplicity of purpose . Show that two and two make four , and you are looked upon askance ; prove that the 6 quaie of the hypothenuse is equal to the square of the two sides , and you convict yourself of being a traitor . This

    mistrust and suspicion pervade all places , all classes . Working men treat " the middle classes " as heartless fiends , bent only on " grinding the marrow of the toiling millions into money / ' or some such process ; Lord Truro happens to have met Miss Talbot in society , at Lord Shrewsbury ' s , and an evil eye is cast upon the absolutely immaculate perception of the Lord Chancellor . There was a time when an honest man's word was taken because it was his : now it is degenerating into the " old-fashioned" to say that such a thing " must be true , for so-and-so said so . " There are no honest men in our day—so says Public Opinion .

    Faith is broken down all but universally , to the immense hindrance of all public progress ; for there is no getting on well without faith . Trust may be ahused , but blind mistrust is far oftener deluded . Men are mostly honest when they are honestly treated . Of all men the fewest lies are told to the notoriously straightforward . The instinctive sympathy is excited even in the liar by the open countenance , of honesty ; his self-respect is reawakened by the expression of generous trust . But it must be confessed that there is some

    ground for the mistrust in public affairs . The ruling" principle has been a misanthropical scepticism in the value of honesty . Ministers themselves have set an example , not only of shuffling , —that might have been transitory , and its effect limited to an estimate of Whig humanity , —but of general mistrust . It is " official" to have no real heart in anything , to deal in the suppressio veri , to prevaricate , and to trust no one ; the " official" style is one that refuses to recognize the truth when stated , and avoids recording what may hereafter be used

    against the department—avoids recording anything positive lest it should be an absolute truth . Ministers are " virtuous" men , and Lord John backs the Cape , Ceylon , or New Zealand asseverations of Mr . Hawes . A Whig corn-law reform or sugar reduction is thought of just as expulsion from office is imminent ; a franchise extension is proclaimed in the reply to a Locke King ; a Disraeli blocks out the questioning of " Liberals , " and a Lord John gets an Anti-Papal Hill , supply , and income tax , all set smooth against the entry of a Stanley into office .

    With no public faith there is no public spirit . No parties command credit , no measure commandn frank cooperation . Even the census becomes suspected of party motives and hidden objects . The philosophical demand for " statistics" would quite full in with the temper of the day ; hut let it take the shape of a Somerset-house " form , " and the demand becomes * ' inquisitorial . " In Lierinondsey , we are told , tiuch difficulties presented themselves to tho collection of the Census returns : —

    " In delivering the m . hedules tho enumerators were , in many intstniicen louk < ' < l upon with great miHpioion . Soine pi rKoiiH declared that , they were the einissurifs of the , Chancellor of the Kiceh < cjuer , who hud sonje . sinister object in view . Othe ' rH protected that the information nought wiir of a more inquisitorial intture even than ih ^ t required fur the piirpone of iinHeHftiiikf » he income tux ; and , in not * fciy ^ "Hiiiu ^ ftt the Utter , v . lutw of ol > jectorn committed the nuner * to '' V "n «« i or tor * M »*? . * W ul »

    b . fore the eyea of the enumi ; tat < irn , vowing that \ Uajy would not Ktate their ji ^ es } ' to pleasr any Government , whatever , lu onv back wtree ^ , where lhr ' Hchonlmante ^' ia altogether unknown , the Kr «* Atent pou « ible alarm was cct'Hted , by the uun «? arai » ce o » the o < iiv < yn » •»« 4 the tryioe of the puj ) ern—and » . « wiron « ly dijj tho wU * <\ f vjiictmen \« apd distreHHen preHenl fhemHelves to tlje I . UU \ i vC the occiipuhtK , thut eig ht , or nine lrinh families <; ornjuet < ly disappeared before tho la |»* e of four-uinl twenty hon ' rn . ^

    We know that such fcel ' m ^ N are not limit to " lm < -k tjtfcvtf , " ' to Hermond « ey ; l > ut that lauding men in far more central places have taken the

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    Awl & 1851 . ] Ci * e Uralier * 319

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), April 5, 1851, page 319, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1877/page/11/