6

and mind are passed through the fire without a sigh. The member for West Surrey observed in the debate on the Navigation Bill, with as much truth as wit, "that all sages in all ages had pronounced certain dogmata by which they had become celebrated. One had said, 'Know thyself;" another had said, 'Pleasure is the greatest good;' another, Virtue is the greatest good:' but the great dogma of the present day, reduced to its smallest dimensions, was, 'Buy for a penny, sell for a pound.' It is too true: it is the mean and selfish doctrine for which the League organized its dishonest mission, and paid with lavish prodigality its successful missionary. The cry was, "Cheap food for the poor!" Was this the end desired? No such thing. The real object was, "Greater profit for the manufacturer;" and, that he may acquire these, agitation is again at work. England is now required, with something more than gentle force, to become a proselyte to this new doctine: no matter what she may have to give up of honour-no matter what she may lose in integrity-what she may sacrifice in faith, provided she make money. This maxim, "Put money i' thy purse"-the hybrid offspring of the mill and chandler's-shop-is fast eating out whatever was noble amongst nations. "Peace, for the sake of humanity," is a cant word of the day. "Peace, for the sake of wealth," is its real meaning. Though peace in itself be a priceless blessing, yet the desire for its maintenance may become the expression of an unmitigated selfishness; and such we believe it now to be on the part of many. It is an ominous condition in any state when acknowledged principles of honour and faith are to be quietly abandoned, because the cost of their maintenance will require a sacrifice of ease or enjoyment on the part of the wealthier classes. If we mistake not, many of the manufacturers of this country are ready for this abandonment, and will pay any agitator very handsomely who will enforce its necessity.

A contemporary writer has quoted the following observation of Burke in illustrating the spirit of the day :

"The age of chivalry is gone: that of sophists, economists, and calculators has succeeded, and the glory of Europe is extinguished for ever. Never more shall we behold that generous loyalty to rank, and see that proud submission, that dignified obedience, that subordination of the heart, which kept alive, even in servitude itself, the spirit of an exalted freedom. The unbought grace of life, the cheap defence of nations, the nurse of manly sentiments, is gone. It is -that sensibility of principle, that chastity of honour which felt a stain like a wound, which inspired courage whilst it mitigated ferocity,

gone

which ennobled whatever it touched, and under which vice itself lost half of its evil by losing all its grossness."

The quotation is most apt to the times. It was written in the contemplation of one revolution-it is descriptive of the causes of another: it is the lament of a high-minded man over a moral death in which the politicians and economists of this day exult, and it accounts for the degradation into which the heretofore noble of every class are daily sinking. Honour amongst kings, faith amongst nations, are at a discount. Whilst, on the one hand, monarchs are seen to uphold their power by acts of treachery or turn craven in the hour of danger, on the other, the virtue of allegiance is trampled under foot. Where men were wont to die in defence of a principle they now purchase life, and sometimes infamy, by the sacrifice of all that is high and honourable. When the Duchess of Orleans was in the Chamber of Deputies, shaming, with her woman's courage, the frightened spirits of her husband's house, one cry of devotion from a loyal heart might have saved the dynasty; but it was wanting, and this, too, in France! But what could be expected when one of the noblest warriors she ever encountered lies pining in a prison, the victim of a solemn pledge given by a prince and broken in shameless indifference to honour by the nation in whose name it was offered? If Louis Philippe complain of the defection of men, both high and low, sworn to allegiance, he will only find in it the true reflection of that perjured act by which Abd-el-Kader became and remains the prisoner of France.

Lord John Russell has recently remarked, that the middle and lower classes are not generally desirous of a greater measure of Parliamentary Reform! The remark has been much canvassed. His lordship is right and he is wrong. He is right if by this greater measure he means that which Mr. Joseph Hume and his tail are desirous of obtaining for their own selfish purposes: he is wrong if by this remark he would have it to be understood that the restless spirit which is finding a place in the thoughts and hearts of these classes every where else is unwelcome to them here. The League and its purposes, in the new career of agitation which is opened to needy adventurers, are too palpably dishonest to deceive the classes who are earnestly canvassed for support; and it is a libel upon the virtue to suppose for one moment that any particle of pure patriotism enters into the composition of this disreputable confederation. The points for which the country is now to be agitated are, with a very slight difference, the very points which have long been advocated by poorer men

of greater honesty and as much ability as the clique which has now adopted them; and, whilst there is enough of political charlatanism in the missionaries of this new-born agitation to make us utterly disgusted with their work, there is something contemptible in the way in which they are stepping forward, now that there is a chance of a treaty with Chartism, to take the fruits of the victory out of the hands of those who have fought the battle, and whom they have ridiculed when suffering under the heat of the conflict. It is the best thing, however, that could have happened for Feargus O'Connor, as he now stands in contact with Cobden as the greater political hero and honester man of the two.

The theory of the purity of election is, after all, but a theory, and will never be anything else. We may have universal suffrage and vote by ballot-we may shorten the periods of parliamentary session and lessen the qualifications of parliamentary members; but we never, by these measures, can reach the corruption of the human heart, which has more to do with the matter than any legislative enactmentswhich will find an outlet, and which is perfectly indifferent to the form of development which they prescribe. If, in addition to these items in the notable scheme of parliamentary reform which is now to be forced on the country by the wealth of the manufacturers, we should be unlucky enough to find the Chartist plan of remuneration to the members also adopted -(and who can say that it will not be ?)-we shall then come to the lowest degree in the scale of our degradation. The House of Commons will cease to be an assembly of highminded educated gentlemen, and England will thenceforth be at the mercy of men without principle, as they are without information and without worth.

But though it is something like a mockery to deal in argument with these theories as the results of honest resolves and wise reflections-something like an insult to the good sense of the middle and lower classes to suppose that they can contemplate the objects which they propose as sufficient compensation for the social evils of which all are conscious-still they are a bonus to the revolutionary spirit that is abroad, and will be gladly accepted by many as an instalment who would utterly despise them as an ultimate and final payment. And herein lies the mischief of this agitation. Lord John Russell is mistaken if he does not see that, on this ground, any measure of Parliamentary reform will be acceptable which ensures a further progression: he is mistaken, too, if he supposes that the deep feeling of wrong unmerited, and suffering uncared for,

which seems to pervade the labouring classes of other lands, finds no responsive echo in the hearts of our poorer population here. The middle classes may be conservative, for they, at least, have something to keep; but the lowest class of all, too long neglected by wealthy landlords, and ground into the dust by the iron machinery of a system which uses up human strength and health in the acquisition of enormous wealth, with little thought of the misery that is entailed-these believe that nothing short of self-legislation can help them. They are too clear-sighted not to see that the theories of these monied agitators will not ameliorate their condition; yet sufficiently reckless to snatch at any weapon that may be offered without caring for the hand that offers it-provided only that it be a weapon of offence and that it will help them one step onward in the attainment of their object. This is the weapon that the League is forging.

We know not whether the members of the League understand, or care for, the mischief they are doing. It is ever the folly and the judgment of those who, for their own interests, destroy existing institutions, that there is always a point which they never see--where they must cease to attack and commence to defend-only to be ultimately stricken down by the means of aggression which they themselves have furnished. The crusade at present is against the aristocracy and its influence: when these fall, the plutocracy will stand face to face alone with the people. Is there that strength of virtue that cleanness of hand and honesty of dealing-that tender consideration for inferiors and gentle treatment of dependents, that shall leave the people no ground to ask a reckoning and afford no cause of fear to those who are required to give it? We think not. When the palaces of the nobles fall, the mills must follow. When the aristocrat is stricken to the ground, because he possesses the accidents of birth and rank, the millionaire will shortly lie by his side, because he is guilty of the crime of wealth. As these unwise agitators succeed in preparing the one result for those above them, they inevitably secure the other for themselves. "Go to now, ye rich men; weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you. Your riches are corrupted, and your garments are moth-eaten. Your gold and silver is cankered; and the rust of them shall be a witness against you, and shall eat your flesh as it were fire. Ye have heaped up treasure together for the last days....... Ye have lived in pleasure on the earth, and been wanton: ye have nourished your hearts, as in a day of slaughter." (James v.)

128

ART. VI.-1. Organization du Travail. Par M. LOUIS BLANC. Paris.

1848.

2. M. Chevalier's Reply to Louis Blanc. Paris. 1848. 3. The Rights of Labour. London: C. Knight. 1848.

THE question of labour and its right organization has assumed an aspect of such great political importance that it cannot be passed over without subjecting us to the charge of apathy or neglect. That it has assumed a new mode and style is evident from the title of a work we are about incidently and by way of digression to look into-M. Louis Blanc's "Organization of Labour." We need say little here of the author, for both he and his writings, his principles and his defeats, are now well known; but, be he what he may, there is that in his book which commands our attention.

The rights of labour are of the most sacred and solemn kind; and no man, worker or no worker, can, with any plea of justification, refuse to hear the great cry that arises throughout the length and breadth of the land. They cry aloud for help-for labour—a "fair day's wages for a fair day's work"-for work, even at the smallest remuneration, rather than be idle : and, because they have cried long in vain, we begin to find something like a very alarming agitation pervading the masses. For, although in detail rioters and mobs are only like the wild cattle goaded into Smithfield or the shambles, yet they are goaded and they may do danger: and as we have seen that apathy and indifference have met with a terrible retribution in several instances, it is necessary to consider the grounds of their discontent, if only from the meaner motive of self-preservation.

Let it be remembered that, in thus considering the condition of the artizan and the labourer, it is no concession that we make; and we can have no right to compliment ourselves when we only grant that as a favour which he can demand as a right. In this position of things, then, the convention of class vanishes before the sternness of the object we have in view, while the muttering of the thunder in the air must not be unregarded.

We would gladly behold any rational system, propounded for the amelioration of the labourer's condition, acted upon; but, as we are conscious that troublous times produce ideas most Utopian, which are not suited to the condition and rapid movements of man-so also, before we accept any such theory, we would look to it narrowly, so that we may not act hastily upon it, lest we make that which is already bad-worse.