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Untitled Article
We only stand by and say , " Strike , but hear I" and so they do ; for they hear that they may strike with impunity . A great deal of cajolery has been practised under the form of what is called the principle of non-intervention . The meaning of this expression , so far as it means any thing good , is , that one state is not to interfere with the inhabitants of another in the regulation of their internal concerns . And
this is all very well , so long as the people really are left to themselves to frame their own institutions and manage their own concerns . If they prefer King Stork to King Log , let them have him . But what people have been so left ? Not the Spaniards , not the Italians , not the Poles , not even the luckiest of them all , the Belgians . The practical working of this nonintervention is simply to keep the friends of mankind quiet , and leave the world to the mercy of its enemies ; and we know what their mercies are .
They commence with the bayonet , and end with the gibbet . The despotic powers will intervene ; they have their armed hosts always ready to intervene ; and our non-intervention is only a guarantee that they shall not be interrupted in trampling out every spark of liberty the moment it becomes visible , wherever it may shew itself . Such is not the principle on which it becomes England and France to act , stationed by Providence , as they appear to be , for the defence of human freedom , civilization , and
improvement . But this country is , it may be hoped , about to assume a more becoming attitude . England is in the process of political regeneration . The Reform Bill has been sent up to the House of Lords by an overwhelming majority of the Commons . A crowd of petitions , from all classes of the community , are streaming in its train . We will not speculate on what our readers must
know in a few days , the reception that it shall there meet with . Whatever that may be , its ultimate success , and that at no distant period , is inevitable . We are , in truth , however fastidious many persons may be about the word , in a state of revolution . The present Parliament is unlike any other which has been called in this country ; it is to all intents and purposes a convention of delegates for the purpose of co-operating with the King in effecting
a revolution—a peaceful , a just , and a glorious revolution—but a revolution nevertheless . We see not how it is possible that its progress should be resisted . "No resistance that we can imagine will even change the peacefulness of its character . The King can quietly create more Peers , and the people can quietly decline to pay more taxes . Either operation is a quietus . Whatever the anomalies of the Reform Bill , it provides effectually for the
legal expression and influence of the intelligence , the opinions , the feelings , and the interests , of the community ; and whatever does * hat , must make Great Britain a glory in the earth . The reaction of such a legislature on the community mast be to augment its intelligence , to rectify its opinions , to elevate its feelings , and to advance its interests . We bless Heaven for the prospect , and let good men of ail nations say , Ameo .
Untitled Article
Politwe of the Month . 7 1 1
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Oct. 2, 1831, page 711, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2602/page/59/
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