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#rgnfli;ctiofljs af ..ijit lfin$lt, POLITICAL AND SOCIAL.
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advise you to read slowly the " Haunted Mind , " if you want to , understand the secret of Hawthorne s spell . A Dictionary of the French and Engluh Language . For the use of Schools and for General Reference . ^ tatoelSnrensie . A Compact , well printed , decidedlyserviceable book . It is ari abridgement of Sitfenne ' s Stantkird Pronouncing Dicttbnary in kpbcketdhle shape . A vocabulary of Proper Name added , with tables of French money , &c . ¦ -.
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HOW THE " TIMES " ASSAILS WORKING MEN . ( Concluded from our last , p . 20 . ) It has been painful to observe the tone of the numerous employers who , under real and feigned names , have poured their foregone complaints into the ears of the Times . They are , with scarcely an exception , imputative and offensive . Well meaning themselves , having beyond doubt , in most cases , the welfare of the men at heart as much as the Engineers * Council , these masters will give that advice which they deem most honourable to our national character , and most serviceable to the men . It is just possible that the men may doubt their sincerity . If they do , the masters will be quick to
feel the injustice of the suspicion . Can they not for a moment imagine , that the Council who advise the engineers—or rather who execute their resolves—are well meaning also—that they seek the true welfare of the men , and are not even inconsiderate of the interests of the employers- ^ -according to the light and experience they have ? Are these members of the Engineers' Society , therefore , likely to listen to the recommendations of" Amicus , " were those recommendations ever so just ? Are they likely to trust to his profession of amicableness when he addresses them as a" knot of plotting demagogues , " and tells the public that *• their language is as ~ false as their
hearts are untrue . " If- the Times intends this sort of ¦ w riting to benefit eitheiMthe . men or the employers , or improve the public judgment , it is grievously mistaken . It is just the language to make matters worse all round . If the Times is sure the masters will triumph , and means them to triumph , and lends them its advocacy that they may triumph , this is another matter ; but if it comes into the controversy to « ee justice done and good feeling prevail on both sides ( the only reason a journal can have for interfering ) , it ought not to take that course which makes justice and good feeling impossible .. Supposing that the provocation comes entirely from the side of the men , and that the masters are
immaculate—a rather presumptuous proposition to assume , still the masters , having more knowledge , wealth , and position , than the men , they are in circumstances to set a better example , and the public have a right no * fc only to expect , but to exact , it from them . The old barbarian style of dispute , sixty years ago , was for the men to assume their employers to be natural tyrants ., and then for the employers to assume that the men were naturally ill designing . It was said this viciousness was passing away , and that masters and men had come to regard themselves as two parties , in opposite relations , each
seeking naturally and honourably its own welfare , and never disputing for each others destruction , and warring by calling each other infamous names ; but respectfully and patiently endeavouring to discover and adjust the middle line of their mutual interests . The Times has certainly the discredit of having destroyed this belief , by a rancour of advocacy which can do nobody so much harm as the body of gentlemen who condescend to have it employed on their behalf . Impartial persons will suspect that the cause of the employers is , after all , not so very pure and fair , when an accomplished defender like the Times , finds it needful to embroil the question in vulgar personalities . Even if the accusations of the Times were true , it
is not useful to introduce them , Were the Engineers Council a " knot of plotting demagogues , " which cannot be proved—except by a logic which would equally prove the Lancashire employers to be a gang of conspiring tyrants "—it is nothing to the purpose . In this controversy , Buch mutual invective is simply loss of time . The operatives will not believe that their own shopmates , whom they have known , and tried , and elected , are knaves , because the Times says So : nor will the public believe that the heads of the Lancashire firms ( known to be as
anxious for Hho working man ' s welfare as this Engineers' Council ) are tyrants , because the Operative may say bo ( which , by the way , it probably will not say ) . In industrial questions , bad intention and good intention are alike fallible , and the sole points to be discussed are the apparent justice and probable consequences of the steps proposed . Let the engineers preserve the admirable temper in which their Council have entered into this discussion , and if they have a right case , public opinion will be with them . If they otq not seduced by the dangerous and
almost irresistible example of the Times , they will command respect . Working men are great in suspicion—calling names is their forte—invectives come from them in showers ; they find themselves to be to a great extent ignorant , believe themselves to be greatly oppressed , and hence denunciation is at once withihtheir taste , their powers , and their feelings . The Time 9 writes as though it knew this , ^ Amicus " also knows " a thing or two" besides the no overwork question , and his letter is admirably adapted to ruin the engineers' advocacy—not by his arguments , which can be met , but by the feelings he will awaken , and the bad spirit he will inspire . The mechanic will naturally think he may call names if
his master does so . When & gentleman stoops to invective , a workman supposes he may also indulge a little . He forgets that the public are apt to think accusation a smartness in the employer , but a vicious vulgarity on the part of the man . The next danger is that the workman may be really outraged by these imputations , and retort angrily ; and then we shall have the retort thus extorted paraded in the columns of the 2 « me # by some astounded ** Amicus , " and a leading article will follow , on the plan pursued in Prance lately , where every delirious expression of antagonism was been stored up and palmed off upon Europe as the genuine expression of the deliberate sentiments of an entire party of Social and Political Reformers .
On the 29 th the Times virtually recalled its imputations , and adopted a "juster tone , and restated its own case . But it suffers its correspondents to persevere in their acrimony . On that day the Times said it had no wish j" to use hard names either to the operatives or those who directed their movements . " This is a correction of error sooner than is usual with the Times , and it will be well if the employers follow the example . In this notice it is not intended to enter into the merits of the actual industrial question in dispute , but to fix attention upon the manner of conducting it—which is a point of no mean importance . The merits of the case will make themselves evident if kept out of thejplouds of mutual vituperation .,
Jt would be fortunate , if it were possible for the Engineers' Council to assume the good intention of the Times , of " Amicus , " and of all the employers , or pass their imputations by as a digression or a neutrality , and deal with the simple justice or injustice , and the good or bad consequences of the question in dispute . It is also needful that they should declare whether their course of action will be wholly negative or partly positive . If positive in any sense , then the line should be drawn clearly between vindication of the rights of labour , and intimidation , or interference with the rights of masters . If a purely negative course is adopted , which seems the only one political
economy could not assail , such a course should be distinctly stated and rigidly enforced . But these are matters for the Council to consider—the main point the public at this moment are concerned with , is . to see that the intentions of the necessitous working men are as well respected as the intentions of their wealthy employers . True to the instincts of . hereditary power it ever championizes , the TimesJim exhausted all the platitudes of its praises upon the virtue of the master class , and stigmatized as " a gang of agitators , " the working men , whose only proved crime is that they contemplate the improvement of their condition , by means which
the competitive system has always authorised . In nearly every department of literature and Government , educated gentleman are found following the disreputable policy of imputation—constantly addressing the working classes as they would not suffer any to address them without resentment . Now , in the matter of justice and fair play , even the populace are equals . As all are ( theoretically ) equal in the eye of the law , so they should be in the eye of a gentleman . Yet in the country a gentleman educated at Oxford , if he happens to be a squire , a clergyman , or an overseer , will walk into a poor man ' s cottage , or even take the lid off his pot , to see what he has for dinner—conduct for which he would
knock the peasant down , or kick him out of doors , if he came into his house and did the same thing . In the same manner the cotton squires of the manufacturing districts will pry into their workmen ' s earnings , prescribe what they should live upon , what they shall eat , what society they shall keep , intimidate them into churches or conven tides on Sundays , dictate what societies they shall belong to , to whom they shall give their confidence and from whom they-shall withhold it , stigmatize thorn whom they -shall withhold it , stigmatize tftom
as dupes ; ' their committees a M gang , "—conduct which in the working man , would be called insolence . If the workman should thus attempt to dictate to his omployer his course of procedure , the said employer would kick him out of the factory . If these same working men venture merely to say that they are not willing to work seventeen hours a day at the mero will of the master , the literary ire of the Times is loosened upon them , the whole country alarmed at the coup d ' etat of struggling industry . And this is what gentlemen ' capitalists , editors of leading journals , polished and cultivated employers , call fair play . Ion .
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There is no learned ' man but will . confess he hath much profited by reading controversies , his senses awakened , and his judgmentsharpened . If , then , it be profitable for hirn to read , why should it not , at least , be tolerable for his adversary to write . —Milton .
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TO THE MEMBERS OP THE NATIONAL CHARTER ASSOCIATION . Miteside , January 4 , 1852 . Gentlemen , —1 find that 470 of you have elected me to be one of your Executive for this year . I am very heartily thankful for this Unsolicited and unexpected mark of confidence ; but some few explanations are necessary on my part before I can either accept ( except temporarily ) or decline the office to which I have been chosen . For , however gratified I may be by the trust , I cannot lose sight of the
strangeness of the position to which my friends are inviting me , namely , as one of the heads of a body which for a long time past I have been pronouncing ( and still must persist in pronouncing ) dead , —utterly dead , and beyond hope Of even a galvanic recovery . I am . ready and willing to undertake any office for the People . But if I take office , I must work . If I work , I must ksow the object for -which I am to work , and approve the means placed at my disposal . I know your object ; but I do not apprdve your means , for I think them utterly insufficient . — -
Even if disposed to waste my own : time upon futilities , I could not consent to minister to a delusion ; nor have I sufficient power of face to undertake to lead men Nowhither . To think that the present Chartist organization can' ever get the Charter I believe to be a delusion ; and , as the " National Charter Association , " under present guidance , you will just go toward Nowhither till you die of inanition on the road .
I say this with no personal reference to either the last or the present Executive ; I say this without any condemnatory allusion to what are called the " past mistakes " of Chartism . I speak of Chartism as it is ; of your association at its best , as the organ only of of the working classes , of only a part of them . And was it of the whole , it would not alter my conviction : which is , that the working classes alone can never win their freedom by any such organization as yours , or by any such method of procedure .
What is the difference between the middle and working classes in this matter ? Why , that the middle classes have a power in the State ; and even a few of them , if discontented , can terribly embarrass the Government ; so the Government respects their grumbling whenever it reaches a certain temperature . But for the working classes , they may talk till doomsday , and their talk will carry , nothing , because they have no power in the State . That ia , no power constitutionally ; and they are not yet by any means prepared to act unconstitutionally , no more than
they were in April ' 48 , or in November ' 39 . The working classes must adopt measures very different from any they have yet seriously contemplated , before they can be strong enough to free themselves by themselves . But they can win their freedom in concert with the honest Liberals of the middle classes . In . concert with them they may obtain the franchise through the ordinary means of political agitation , enrolment of names , subscription of funds , and lota of stump-oratory .
These two paths lie open to you—the unconstitutional and the constitutional . The third way goes Nowhither . You will not reach the churter , though yea travel on it fifteen years more , and fifteen hundred afterwards " . For the unconstitutional way you artJ not fit . Only one course remains ; to get the mi . ddlo classes to join you . I do not "advise you to betray " your cause by any alliance with the Parliamentary Reform Association or the Manchester move . But I advise you to act so as to detach the best men from both these ; , and so at once to knock thorn up , and to substitute for them a real national party . If there are not any honest men among them to join you , then God he \ p you for another generation ! But there are ma » , iy honest men , though prejudiced against the na » . ne of Chartist . Oh , " prejudioe against a namol" Well , and i « not your * a prejudice for a nam * t
#Rgnfli;Ctiofljs Af ..Ijit Lfin$Lt, Political And Social.
# rgnfli ; ctiofljs af .. ijit lfin $ lt , POLITICAL AND SOCIAL .
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[ IN THIS DEPARTMENT , AS All . OPINIONS , HOWBVEB EXTREME , ABE ALLOWED AN EXPRESSION , THE EDITOR NECESSARILY HOLDS HIMSELF RESPONSIBLE FOR NONE . ]
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40 « 1 rr Utatoet . f 8 jm * x > , A
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Leader (1850-1860), Jan. 10, 1852, page 40, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1917/page/16/
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