On this page

• Text (1)

  Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.

  • 

    Untitled Article

• Transcript

  • Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.

    Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.

    Untitled Article

    specific , which he recommended for adoption . Of several great topics , moreover , the discussion was inevitable . That of the Bank

    and East India questions could not be postponed ; nor was there much tnore choice as to the Irish Church and Negro Slavery .

    And as if to make confusion worse confounded , ' ana do all that could be done towards scattering the strength of reform , the King ' s speech was made the means of wantonly forcing the subject of the Repeal into debate . What national progress could there be ^ n this universal distraction ? The Whigs , with ' perverse

    ingenuity , have varied the old motto of despotism , divide et impera ; theirs has been , ' divide and succumb ; ' divide the Reformers and succumb to the Tories . They remind us of a Wrong-headed whist player , whose maxim was , puzzle your partner , and then you are sure to puzzle your adversaries . We do not apprehend that either of the two last-mentioned evils can occasion more than a very brief suspension of the onward progress of the people . When the need of instruction is felt , it will not long be unsupplied . The artificial obstacles which obstruct the diffusion of political information cannot be much longer upheld . Trade unions will not continue to waste their strength upon strikes ; nor Mechanics' Institutes consent to be restrained from the knowledge which most concerns their members . There will be a general demand for qualified instructors in the science of society ; and the appropriate talent will obey the call . There is a hymn or prayer in use amongst the Methodists , which says , ' We want our wants to know ; we want our want § to feel : we want our wants relieved / The order is

    accurately specified . It is not only that of time , but also that of cause and effect . The people have been made to know their want of political science ; they begin to feel it ; and the relief is not far distant . Meanwhile , the multifarious topics of complaint will subside into their relative importance . The middle classes of the metropolis have made a strong diversion on the assessed taxes , which , whether successful or not , will scarcely be permanent . The two most grinding of our burdens , the Corn Laws and the Hierarchy ,

    will rear their heads , for a mark , amid the troop of smaller deer . The attempt to protect them will only bring on another parliamentary reform struggle , of which it will sufficiently demonstrate the necessity . Whether Government yield to , or resist , the cry which must soon resound through the land on these vital points , matters little . A united people , claiming right , is in the march of improvement . After all , political reform is only the index , and not the essence of that improvement . Or rather , it is the necessary removal of obstructions accumulated in the path by the power and selfishness of a class ., which fancies its own exclusive advantages endangered by the progress of the many . The interest of the people in the

    Untitled Article

    9 Forwards or Backwards ?

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Jan. 2, 1834, page 6, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2629/page/6/