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    try is performed ; therefore are we , in proportion to our degree of civilisation , the very worst administered country in Europe . Where there is a free press , and a well-constituted representative body , the danger is not in giving-too much , but too little controul , to the functionaries who are under the eye of the general public , over those who are not . If there is a principle in politics which all experience confirms , it is this—that popular controul never acts purely , intelligently ; or vigorously , except on a large scale . 19 th April . Government by brute force . —This country is threatened at present with almost the only danger by which its safety and tranquillity can , in the existing aspect of the times , be seriously compromised—an absurd interference with Trades ' Unions . The newspapers , with their usual recklessness , have laboured to create an excitement on the subject ; and though the

    Government have not announced any definite intentions , a hundred little symptoms have shown the animus by which they are possessed , and which needs only last a little longer to prepare them for any folly . There are a kind of persons who , when once they begin inflaming one another , will go any length , and talk themselves up to any pitch of irrationality .

    The uncalled-for interference of the Admiralty , on the occasion of the coopers * strike , was of little importance in itself , but of much from the spirit which dictated it . If , in a country where the poor and the rich never know each other but either in the relation of charity or in that of hostility , any government could possess the confidence of the working people , that confidence would have been justly forfeited by this single act .

    When different sections of the community have clashing in-« £ erests , and are ranged under hostile banners , the proper p lace of a government is not in the ranks of either body , but between them . A government which abdicates its legitimate office of a mediator and peace-maker , and assumes that of an

    auxiliary on either side , no matter in how innocent a manner or in how limited a degree , not only steps out of its province , but unfits itself for its proper duty ; precludes itself from being listened to as an impartial and unprejudiced friend ; and can no longer interfere with effect at all , unless by throwing its sword into the scale of one or other party .

    Immediately after this unthinking proceeding , and Sir James Graham ' s defence of it , came the sentence of seven years * transp ortation upon six Dorsetshire labourers , under a sleeping statute , which nobody dreamed of , and , which was not known to be

    applicable to the case . The attempt to prevent any demonstration of public opinion in behalf of these poor men , by hurrying them out of the country , has signally failed . Petition succeeds petition , and meeting succeeds meeting , in their behalf . Their case has become the popular question , the inflammatory topic of the day .

    Untitled Article

    344 Notes on ike Newspapers .

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), May 2, 1834, page 364, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2633/page/52/