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    engrossed nearly the whole , and have still much more than their just portion ; whereby they are enabled to keep up for their own benefit , many had institutions and bad practices , injurious both to the people of small properly and to the excluded class , the people of no property , viz . thofte whose principal property consists in their bodily faculties .

    The liberals among the people of small property , are those who think , not that property , but that large property , should not confer so much power as it does at present . Now , as the most numerous and poorest class has also an interest in reducing the exorbitant power which is conferred by large property , since by doing so they would get rid of the abuses , such as Corn Laws and the like , with which they are oppressed ,

    not for the benefit of the owners of property generally , but of a small minority of that number ; this constitutes a common object , for which all classes , not directly interested in these abuses , might advantageously co-operate , adjourning the settlement of their own separate differences until after the victory . It is very natural , however , that the working classes , even at this

    early stage in the developement of their collective intellect , should fee ] that their real position in society depends upon something far deeper than the redress of any of the grievances which the majority of their superiors have in common with them . It depends upon the relation which may be established between them and the people of property generally . It depends , not upon the manner in which their superiors share the powers of government , they being excluded ; but upon " whether they themselves have power enough , by political institutions or otherwise , to secure due consideration for their interests on the part of those ,

    be they great proprietors or small proprietors , who make the laws and appoint officers for their administration . A person must be a poor judge of human affairs , who can fancy that this point has been attained now ; that the labouring ) multitude have now more than sufficient weight in the commonwealth to secure a just attention to their grievances ; and sufficient to warrant a fear that their supposed interests or their opinions , will be allowed unjustly to prevail

    over those of any other part of the nation . On the contrary , they have notoriously but just emerged from a state in which they had no power of claiming attention from any one ; in which laws were made , avowedly to prevent them from taking the commonest means of improving their condition ; in which their education was reputed dangerous to church and state ; in which they were actually kept at home , like cattle belonging to a master , for their very emigration was illegal ; in which no legislative

    measure ever passed merely for the good of the working classes , when no powerful section of their superiors had an interest in it ; in which their opinions were never appealed to but when some party of the aristocracy wanted a popular cry . We are not so far from this state yet . The shadow ot it is still upon us . When we see indications that the working classes are beginning to be counted for too . much in the calculations of politicians , we shall think it time to take precautions against that danger . At present we should as soon think of looking out for a substitute against the time when the coal fields shall be exhausted . The people or property are the stronger now , and will be for many years . AH the danger of injustice lies from them , and not towards them . Nothing but the progressive increase of the power of the working classes , and

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    4 $ 6 Notes bti itie Newspapers .

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), June 2, 1834, page 436, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2634/page/54/