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Untitled Article
by myself at a considerable expense ; cheaper than any thing perhaps ever seen before the publications of the Diffusion Society ; the fir ^ t number presented gratuitously to all the subscribers ; the additional expense ? yery trifling ; the intelligence collected with a pains and completeness heretofore unknown amongst us ; and that , in this * together with the Repository ¦ , there was an ampler provision made for the kind of want to which my correspondnet refers , and I must say , of much of it , superior in quality , as well as larger in quantity than had ever before been presented .
Would it not have been more generous conduct in the leaders of the Unitarian body , if , on becoming dissatisfied with the work , they had made overtures for its repurchase , rather than have pursued a course of desertion , hostility , and threatened opposition , the obvious tendency of which was totally to ruin the publication , for which their Association had just received the purchase-money ?
Some complain of the work on account of its political articles . They object to its politics , L e . they object to my politics ; as I should object to theirs , were they editors . For a publication to attain general interest and influence , as a vehicle of moral truth , and yet be silent or neutral on the stirring political questions of the times , is not possible , nor is it desirable . And if the work be the sole property of an individual , whose name also is given to the world as its editor , whose individual , wnose name aiso is given to me worja as its editor , wnose
politics but his should be inculcated in its pages ? Esteeming the power of the work to consist mainly in its frank and earnest spirit , I have been as little disposed to reservation on this point as on any other . And I should have thought that the benefit to society of introducing such a frank and earnest spirit into our literature , might have been put in the balance against an occasional difference on a political question with a subscriber .
The gravamen of the political offence appears to be , that the Monthly Repository does not enforce confidence in his Majesty ' s Ministers . It did % ( and that upon the strength of the personal characters of some of them , their previous professions , the principles on which they avowedly took the government , their introduction of the Reform Bill , and their appeal to the nation ' s reliance , ) until after the memorable restoration in May last . From that time , their whole conduct seems to the editor to be a warning to the people to do that , which it is commonly best
and wisest for a people to do , rely solely upon themselves . And never can the people be largely arid permanently benefited by any party , however well iutentionea , until they do learn to rely upon themselves , and qualify themselves by intelligence for self-reliance . Their only true friends are those , who strive to advance this process ; those who put knowledge within their reach , political knowledge ; not those who limit the means of its attainment for considerations of
revenue , which if correct are paltry , and of the incorrectness of which the proof has been repeatedl y tendered . We shall never have confidence in any political men with whom the instruction of the people is not a paramount consideration . Lord Althorp has lowered the duty on advertisements : that is a boon to the great newspaper monopoly , which he had in his hands the means of breaking up , and giving fair play to the national intellect . The remaining objection is jto those articles which relate to the condition of womea and the marriage question .
Untitled Article
A Letter . 351
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), May 2, 1833, page 351, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2614/page/63/
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