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Thompson ended like one The ^^^ J ^ J ^ g his tones , and the radical justness of aome of his sentimens , fell like a spell upon his hearers . The prospects reopened by this meeting are , altogether , hopeful . If those intended to be benefited by it , viz . the people , interest themselves and render personal aid , we shall have a wide-spread , noble , political revival . The overtures now made are generous and trustful-they should be accepted as frankly . It is another illustration of the many sides to character—the unnoticed , unexpected sides—that should talk
these speakers of the Manchester school of and advise conciliation and mutual trust between rival classes . It shows how unconsciously allnatures are generous in some respect or other . What is more speculative in these days than conciliation ? what more Utopian than mutual trust ? The age is against it , and yet the very school most representative of our own , bargain making , cent , per cent , age , talk this UtoDian doctrine of " confidence . " "Utopia will be a kingdom yet . and looked up to reverentially by respectable people—it will figure one day in the Share List of the Stock Exchange ! Ion .
That the new vigour of the movement is telling upon all parties we discern , not only from the favourable effect produced upon our friend , but from the attacks of certain party journals upon Mr . Fox ' s spirited speech . He avows , explicitly , that his party are seeking a real representation of the People ; and straightway , Liberal journals are scandalized at the idea of objecting to young lords , contractors , and officers , as vicegerents for the veritable People . The attack on Mr . Fox means a fear that the movement , to which he gives voice , is likely to become too popular—likely to take the wind out of poor Lord John ' s sails . They \ vi .- > h to frighten off the dreadful interloper , as savages try to frighten away an eclipse , by
makinga . That which the Parliamentary Reformers now stand for is " universal suffrage "—the representation of the whole people . " The extension of the suffrage to every occupier of a tenement or portion of a tenement , " is the extension of the suffrage to all men who can give an address—to every man who can identify himself— to everybody . Moreover , by his speech , Mr . Fox has brought out the warmer spirit ihat was wanting .
When , however , parties that aim to be popular adopt the one thing still absent , the movement will be truly national : it will be so when parties , abandoning self aggrandizement as the object , repudiating appeals to the mere self-interest oi adherents , feel once more an honest , heariy , common pride in being Englishmen , and resolve ( o stand up for the rights of Englishmen ; not because it is politic , but because it is good and noble Jo do so .
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" THAT IS WHAT WE WANT HERE . " Agriculturalists cannot much longer postpone the corning to a more distinct understanding amongst themselves . Day after day a very broad hint is thrown out that Protection is given up , at least for the present ; but a pretence is made of reserving a hope for some distant and indeterminate future . The practical agriculturists are not content with that vague state of their own policy . At Watlington Mr . Ilarcourt alluded to the rule of agricultural dinner meetings which precludes members from touching on politics—a rule generally observed ; but " at Aylesbury , " he said , " Mr . Disraeli seems to have done otherwise . " On thin
fiomc one exclaimed— " 1 hat is what we want here . " And the President agreed that it was not necessary to stick to the rule . lint when they entered upon the discussion there was poor comfort . Mr . ilarcourt thought the diminution of rates would do little for them ; and lie is quite right . The "local burdens" winch weigh no heavily on Mr . Disraeli ' s mind , are but a . small weight to the farmer in comparison with the burden—the desperate disproportion between
what he can get in a competitive market and what he must pay , not only to the rate collector , but to the rent collector and the labourer . That is the hopeless burden . Will ho get better prices ? Mr . Ilarcourt thinks the fanner can judge as well as the Member ; ho thinks Mr . Henley . Mr . Henley sees no prospect of better prices . Can they , then , get back Protection ? No ; Mr . Henley aces no Ki tfiiM of inducing Parliament to grant a new trial ami reverse its judgment . " You cannot , " ho Hays ,
K « t that judgment net aside , unless you can carry f u : tn to found a new trial upon . I say , at present we have not these facts . " N <> better prices ; no going back to Protection ! What comfort did the farmers and occupiers , nay , the landlordH and the labourers of Berkshire ,
derive from these avowals ? We ask the farmers if they are satisfied ? "We have no facts , " says Mr . Henley . No facts ! Why , is not the farmer desperate ? Is he not obliged to eke out his means by accepting a beggarly , charity-like " reduction of rents , " and by beating down the wages of his poor labourers ? You know he is , Mr . Henley . Are not those " facts " ? In a week or two , in Warwickshire , wages will be down to 7 s . again : is that an income to live upon ? Do you give up your motto of " Live and let live " ?¦ ^ . ^
Oh no ; * ' the game is not played out , " says Mr . Henley . Now , what does he mean ? What has he in reserve ? What are he and his party preparing to do ? Let the farmers ask that . " The game is not yet played out" : such is the boast , it appears , which is substituted for " No surrender . " They have surrendered ; but they won ' t surrender next time . Seriously , it would be well for the farmers to ask what those covert promises mean . We suspect that they mean—simply nothing .
Protection is given up , and the politicians and the agricultural classes have nothing to propose in the place of it—not yet . Such is the fact . Let the practical agriculturists confront it . Politically , Protection has failed . We beg the farmers also to bear some other things in mind . In alluding to past scarcity and recent Free-trade , Mr . Henley let fall this untoward expression : — " The man who could scarcely get one loaf at that time , revels and rejoices in getting two now . " Amost natural exultation . If Mr . Henley had ever been reduced to one loaf—or none—he would know how to rejoice over two . Even the " agricultural mind , " as Mr . Disraeli calls it , perceived that substantial truth ; and when Mr . Henley
said those words about now rejoicing ^ over two loaves , some one called out— " A very good job , too . " "I don ' t know that , " cried Mr . Henley . He doesn ' t know that ! he doesn ' t know that two loaves are better than one ! Perhaps he doesn ' t know that half a loaf is better than no bread ? It is clear that Henley has never been hungry : he does not know the dull gnawing at the pit of the stomach . He went on to say something about wages being reduced as a set-off against the second loaf ; but let us tell Mr . Henley , in all frank and friendly feeling , that wages are a secondary consideration to bread : it all turns upon bread . If a man has two loaves instead of one , he might do without wages .
No ; it was the fundamental mistake of Protection which Mr . Henley let slip into view when he uttered those words : the mistake of Protection was , that it tried to benefit the grower at the expense of the consumer . You could not continue that plan ; you never will be able to renew it . It is surely time that our agricultural readers should ponder that inevitable conclusion . The second fact which we would urge them to ponder , in this grave crisis of their fate , is the condition of the agricultural labourer . The fanner now is not only trying to eke out his deficit—the difference between his income from the market and
his expenditure—by reduction of rents ; he is not only trying to get something out of the market by underselling his neighbour , who undersells him in turn—we ask our friends in Cambridgeshire , in Yorkshire , in Cheshire , whether that is not true ?—but he is trying to eke out by beating down wages . Our readers already know what is habitual in Dorsetshire and Essex , in Suffolk and Norfolk , in Wiltshire : now draw a circle including acorner of Worcestershire , Warwickshire , and Gloucestershire—three of the best counties in England—and there , too , the rule holds good . Seven shillings a week ! It is cruel work . We do not blame the farmer ; but still it is cruel work . And it cannot go on . The . farmer , still sinking , will press more heavily on the labourer . The labourer is bent on escaping . Some of hia kith and kin have done ho : they have gone to America or Australia , and they send back flourishing accounts . They have- had to rough it at first—sometimes they had no " wages" at all ; but they have two loaves , Mr . Henley ; they can eat , and be filled . There is
gold , too , in Australia . And in America , one man , a veritable labourer of that circle which we have designated , is now , not only a landed proprietoranybody may be that !—but a town ih named after him . Imagine John o' Noke . 8 , there in Worcenternhire , remembering poor Tom Stiles , who was no hotter paid or fed than himself - imagine John reading of Tomstilefiville ! Yet what we speak of is a simple fact . Now , will those men atop to be
Starved , or to be workhoused as they are at Barham ? Will they be less sagacious than the wild Irish , who have cut and run ? Of course not : already , and we speak from personal knowledge , their minds are bent upon running . And then what will happen to wages ? Fewer labourers , higher wages ; and yet less hands to do the work that must be done . That is the problem before the farmer . Study it , man : you will have fewer hands , higher wages , and no higher prices . Under those conditions , how will you make both ends meet ? And how , O Landlord , in those circumstances , will Farmer pay his rent ? ^ —
Perhaps you think that you can solve the problem , as the agriculturists have tried in some districts , by preventing their labourers from emigrating—by keeping them at home to be workhoused down to the lowest rate of wages ? Never believe it . They may stop : but workhoused labourers riot ; they also burn hayricks , and cornricks , and farmbuildings . A hungry man is an angry man ; a caged man is a wild beast . Yet , says Mr . Henley , there are " no facts" ! Facts , God wot ! there are in plenty ; stunning facts too . They will not hit you any the softer for for shutting your eyes to them . " Live and let live " is a law suspended .
Now , we repeat , What do the leaders of the agriculturists mean to do ? That is the question of questions for them . They ought to devise a plan of action , and they can do so . There is no wrong without redress . If their old reliance is taken from them , they must , as a landowner says , insist on " Some other kind of Protection . " They must not stand idle , hopeless , and helpless . Let them get from Mr . Whittaker ' s Mr . George Pelsant Dawson ' s very brief pamphlet , How to Live , and next week we will talk to
them about it . The main object of Protection was a just one ; the mode was imperfect ; the object is not out of reach , —on the contrary it is more attainable than ever ; and , by the blessing of God , if the agriculturists will only look at the ground "before them , they shall walk up to that " other kind of Protection " and take it . Assuredly , " That is what we want here . "
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ABD-EL-KADER , LOUIS NAPOLEON , AND LONDONDERRY . The correspondence of the Marquis of Londonderry and M . Louis Napoleon Bonaparte , on the prolonged captivity of Abd-el- Kader , is honourable to the implied wishes of the sometime captive of Ham ; hut in a far higher degree to the noble persistance , the chivalrous compassion , the dignified fidelity to the cause of the captive , which breathes in every word that comes from the heart of the
British soldier and gentleman . In these degenerate and stock-jobbing days , when all generous traditions are held to be worn-out prejudices , when the point of honour"" is a bygone fancy , the faith of capitulations a convenient snare , and respect to the vanquished an idle extravagance of fiction , it is refreshing and ennobling to find an old soldier of European battlefields , a man of tried valour , taking up the righteous cause of humanity in behalf of a warrior whose name alone was once
the terror and despair of invading armies , and tin ; soul of African chivalry . The English nobleman has peculiar and especial claims upon the French President : the claims of enduring friendship and hospitality to the proscribed exile : the claim of an appeal in his favour in the day of his not underserved imprisonment ; the claim of a soldier who had fought in nobler than African campaigns , not to speak of the larger claims of honour .
It must never be forgotten that Abd el-Kiulei was never taken prisoner . Freedom and the illimitable Desert were before him , and the distant chances of a struggle that . should never fla , ^ but with the expiring faith in the Prophet and in tlio champion of the Holy War . He surrendered , mi a free capitulation —on the pledge of a French officer , ratified by a Prince , that , he should be per-¦ under
mitted to retire to Mecca or to Tin key , honourable ; surveillance . It . was thus that this Arab eagle was caught and cmged . It was reserved for the bastard Monarchy of IHM ) to complete a reign of dynastic treacheries by this signal violation of a solemn treaty . It belonged t , «> the young Republic to prevent a royal , from becoming a national , diHgnu * . Hut no ; every Hiicceudmg Republican Executive , from the Provisional
Governmenfc to the installation of the Elect of the 10 th of December , haa adopted , glorified in , the last tosU-
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Oct . 4 , 1851 . ] gftg M <»« y . j ^_ _ . ^^^ MM ^^ M ^ JM ^ T ^^^*^^^^*^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ _ . _ A A k ¦ V _
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Leader (1850-1860), Oct. 4, 1851, page 943, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1903/page/11/
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