"For thee, my country, thee, do I perform,Sternly, the duty of a man born free,Heedless, though ass, and wolf, and venom'd worm,Shake ears and fangs, with brandished bray, at me."
It is impossible to even name a tithe of the men of might and genius whose public services gave energy to this conflict, and splendor to this victory. Behind these stood a host whose less conspicuous, but not less efficient labors, gave aim to that conflict and certainty to that victory. Only two will be mentioned—Mr. Paulton, the able editor of "The League" newspaper, who was one of the earliest actors in the enterprise, and weekly sent forth from his closet arguments which, when reïterated by eloquent tongues on the rostrum, made the land echo the cry of "Cheap Bread;" andMr. George Wilson, who officiated as Chairman of the League from its creation to its extinction. Some estimate may be formed of the extent of his services by a fact stated by Mr. Cobden in his speech at the dissolution. It appeared from the official records of the League, that, during the seven years of its existence, Mr. Wilson had attended its meetings one thousand three hundred and sixty-one times, and had never received one penny for his labor. Such devotion bankrupts all eulogy.
National Debt of Great Britain—Lavish Expenditures of the Government—Its Enormous Taxes—Will the Debt be Repudiated?—Will it Occasion a Revolution?—Plan of Mr. Ricardo to pay the Debt—Mr. Hume's Efforts at Retrenchment.
National Debt of Great Britain—Lavish Expenditures of the Government—Its Enormous Taxes—Will the Debt be Repudiated?—Will it Occasion a Revolution?—Plan of Mr. Ricardo to pay the Debt—Mr. Hume's Efforts at Retrenchment.
Great Britain is the richest and poorest nation of modern times. Her sea-sweeping commerce, her varied and vast manufactures, her fertile agriculture, the millions which flow into her coffers from her colonial possessions, are sufficient, were she free from debt, and her Government economically administered, to make her every son and daughter prosperous. But her huge national debt, and her immense annual expenditures, crush her laboring masses between the upper and nether millstones of remorseless taxation and hopeless poverty. Her debt sits upon the body politic like the nightmare of Erebus, almost stopping the circulation of the vital fluids. Like other high-born bankrupts, she is proud, as well as poor. She maintains the most lavish and expensive Government in the world. Though the interest of her public debt eats out the substance of her people, and the army, the navy, and the church, cling like leeches to her monetary arteries, she annually throws away immense sums in the shape of pensions and sinecures to worn-out heroes and civilians, to generals, admirals, ex-chancellors, judges, and diplomatists, to decayed nobles and knights, and every kind of titled nondescript noodle and nonentity.[12]She lavishes munificent gifts on dilapidatedhospitals, schools, and charitable institutions, whose sole recipients of the bounty are the dryer branches of noble families, with long titles and short purses, whose control over the empty establishments is a sheer sinecure. She heaps bounties on numerous squads of imbeciles, whose blood is of that pale, watery kind supposed to indicate royalty, spending, in a recent year, more than £100,000 upon the nurseries, stables, and kennels of her Majesty's babies, horses, and puppies.[13]Shepays large annual tribute to her universities, that the sons of her nobility and gentry may riot on good living and bad Latin. She quarters at death's door a myriad army of starving paupers, that her landlords may maintain monopolies in the soil, the grain, and the game of the kingdom. Fond of fight and feathers, she hires the sons of her poor at thirteen shillings a month, to sail and march round the world, and bully and kill all who oppose their progress, while she keeps their fathers at home to work out the expenses at a shilling a day. She lays open the whole kingdom as foraging grounds for a ravenous Church Establishment, whose wardens tithe not only mint, anise, and cummin, but all "weightier matters;" and whose "wolves," clad in broadcloth, hunt foxes at £5,000 per year, and hire curates to look after the sheep, at £50. In a word, the pockets and patience of the larger share of British subjects are so heavily taxed by these imposts and impositions, that loyalty itself cries out in tones of vexation and agony, "Though kings can do no wrong, they have a very expensive way of doing right."
At the accession of William and Mary, in 1689, the national debt of Great Britain was £664,000. At the close of the French war, in 1763, £138,000,000. At the close of the American war, in 1783, £250,000,000. At the commencement of the Continental wars, in 1793, £240,000,000. At their close, in 1815, £840,000,000. Thus, it cost England £600,000,000 to put down Napoleon and restore the Bourbons. Some £40,000,000 having been paid off during the last thirty years, it now stands at £800,000,000. The population of the United Kingdom is 26 or 27,000,000. Consequently, the average debt of each man, woman, and child, is upwards of £30, or $150. The adult male population, with such females as are independent property-holders, does not probably exceed 7,000,000. To discharge the debt, it would be necessary that these persons should pay, on an average,nearly $600. This debt may be repudiated; but can it ever be paid?
Looking only to the records, the debt is owing to some 300,000 persons. It would seem, then, that 27,000,000 of people are enormously taxed to pay the interest on this vast debt to this small number of creditors. The British Government is always laying anchors to windward. Forty years ago, when this debt was rapidly accumulating, it saw that if a revolution should occur, and the issue be made up between the tax-payers and the tax-receivers, the former could easily trample down a class with whom they had no sympathy, and repudiate the debt. Accordingly, it has been the policy of the Government during these forty years to induce the middling and poorer classes to invest money in the public funds, through the medium of savings banks, charitable institutions, and friendly societies. Not long since, there was found to be standing in the names of the commissioners of those associations some £25,000,000 of the public debt, belonging to about 800,000 individual depositors and 16,000 associations—the latter representing probably 1,000,000 of people. Thus the debt is actually owing to 2,000,000 of people, three-fourths of whom are of the middling and lower orders of society—the very class that would be likely, if any, to foment a revolution of the Government. So long as this state of things exists, it is safe to presume that the public debt of Great Britain will never be repudiated, even by revolution.
The taxes upon the people of that kingdom equal those of any other nation on earth. The annual average of direct tax paid to the Government by each man, woman, and child, exceeds £3. It is paid by less than one-fifth of the population, making about $100, on an average, for each tax-payer, rich and poor. Nearly the whole, ultimately, comes directly and indirectly from the poorer classes, not in money solely, but in hard work, high rents, mean fare, and low wages. These taxes are levied on land, meats, drinks, glass, malt, soap,spirits, windows, servants, horses, carriages, dogs, newspapers, stamps, &c., to the last syllable of the record of human wants and uses.
Sydney Smith, in the Edinburgh Review, gives a graphic sketch of this all-pervading system of taxation. He says it involves "taxes upon every article which enters into the mouth, or covers the back, or is placed under the foot. Taxes upon everything which is pleasant to see, hear, feel, smell or taste. Taxes upon warmth, light, and locomotion. Taxes on everything on earth, and the waters under the earth; on everything which comes from abroad or is grown at home. Taxes on the raw material; taxes on every fresh value that is added to it by the industry of man. Taxes on the sauce which pampers a man's appetite, and the drug that restores him to health; on the ermine which decorates the judge, and the rope which hangs the criminal; on the poor man's salt, and the rich man's spice; on the brass nails of the coffin, and the ribbons of the bride. At bed or board, couchant or levant, we must pay. The schoolboy whips his taxed top; the beardless youth manages his taxed horse with a taxed bridle on a taxed road. The dying Englishman pours his medicine which has paid 7 per cent., into a spoon which has paid 15 per cent.; flings himself back upon his chintz bed which has paid 22 per cent.; makes his will on an eight pound stamp, and expires in the arms of an apothecary who has paid a license of a hundred pounds for the privilege of putting him to death. His whole property is, then, immediately taxed from 2 to 10 per cent. Besides the probate, large fees are demanded for burying him in the chancel; his virtues are handed down to posterity on taxed marble, and he is then gathered to his fathers, to be taxed no more."
The annual Government expenditures of Great Britain are nearly $400,000,000. The heaviest appropriation goes to pay the interest on the public debt, which requires $150,000,000. The army and navy absorb $75,000,000.There are 2,000 pensioners, who receive annually $5,000,000 or $8,000,000. The Queen and royal family get some $5,500,000 to supply the royal tables and stables, the royal babies and lap-dogs. Full $2,000,000 go to sinecures, such as the lord groom of the stole, the lord keeper of her Majesty's buck-hounds, the lady sweeper of the Mall, the lords wine-tasters, store-keepers, and packers, not omitting the chief justices in Eyre, who have done nothing for a century, and the Duke of Wellington, who seems likely to live forever. To these governmental expenditures must be added the income of the Established Church, whose Archbishop of Canterbury, pocketing, until recently, his $100,000 per year, mourns over the modern degeneracy which gives her clergy only 42,000,000 dollars annually.[14]
With these facts before us, we may form some estimate of the condition and prospects of the poor of a country where labor is abundant at twenty cents per day. Out on the inhuman policy which would prevent these hungry millions from emigrating to our broad American acres, which stretch westward almost to sundown, and on that remorseless policy which would exclude them from these acres, by blasting the soil with the sirocco of chattel slavery!
Should the number of public creditors in England become limited to two or three hundred thousand, its enormous debt, its immense annual expenditures, and its consequent excessive taxation, might become the occasion of a revolution of its Government. Three of the most important political revolutions of modern times are, that of England in 1644, that of America in 1775, and that of France in 1789. Each happened when an attempt was made to levy taxes upon the people, to relieve the burdens upon the national treasury. That subject is so mixed up with the first demonstrations of revolt, that, from being the mereoccasionof the outbreak, it has beenoften, if not generally, regarded as itscause. But, to assign the resistance to the levying of poundage and ship-money by Charles I, without authority of Parliament—to assign the refusal to pay a tax on tea and paper by the American Colonies, because imposed by a legislature in which they were not represented—to assign the extraordinary assembling of the States General, by Louis XVI, to supply a treasury exhausted by the foreign wars and domestic profligacies of previous monarchs—to assign these as the causes of the mighty convulsions which immediately followed, is assigning ascausesthoseeventswhich proved that the revolutions had already begun. It is referring the terrible explosion solely to the spark which ignited the train which a century had been accumulating—is mistaking the cataracts over which the popular currents fell, for the remote fountains from which they rose. The people were discontented with their Governments—they refused to contribute to their support—coercion drove them to revolt. A people ripe for revolution are apt at making up an issue with their oppressors, and seizing an occasion to smite off their chains, and are quite as likely to avail themselves of an odious tax, which reaches all classes, as of greater outrages, which press only upon single individuals or a limited portion of the community. If England is convulsed with a revolution, it is quite as probable to be occasioned by excessive taxation as any other event.
Anxious to avert dangers, as well as to relieve burdens, the great problem which British financiers have set themselves to solve, since the peace of 1815, has been to devise some means of paying off the public debt and reducing taxation. The boldest proposition to this end was brought forward by Mr. Ricardo, a gentleman of the liberal school of politics, an Edinburgh reviewer, celebrated for his controversy with Mr. Malthus, the writer on the laws of population and national wealth. For the ten years subsequent to the peace of 1815, the financial embarrassments of England more than once drove her tothe borders of national bankruptcy. Mr. Ricardo, then being a member of the Commons, proposed, as the best mode of extricating the kingdom from those embarrassments, to tax its capital and property to the amount of, say £800,000,000, and pay the public debt off at once! He defended this scheme on the two-fold ground of justice and economy, contending that what a debtor owes ought always to be deducted from his property, and regarded as belonging to his creditors, and therefore should be given to them—that all estimates of the wealth of the debtor, till such deduction and payment are made, are false and delusive—that the then present generation had contracted nearly the whole of the debt, and therefore ought not to entail its payment upon posterity—and that, by immediately discharging the debt, the expense of managing it, and raising the revenue to pay the interest upon it, would be a large saving to the nation. These propositions he maintained with that vigor of reasoning, fullness of detail, and clearness of illustration, for which he was remarkable, and which won him a high place among the politico-economical philosophers of his time. But his scheme fell of its own weight, having few supporters except himself. It was in advance of an age which never thought of paying, but only of borrowing. Though its author did not convince the Commons of its practicability or expediency, he pretty thoroughly alarmed the capitalists and property-holders of the kingdom.
After many years of labor on the part of Mr. Vansittart, Mr. Robinson, Mr. Peel, Mr. Huskisson, and others, tocipherthe public debt into non-existence, the hope of ever seeing it paid off seems to have given place to despair, to be followed by apathy. No sane Englishman now looks to see it discharged till huge monopolies which oppress the industry of the country are abolished, the system of Government entirely remodeled, and its expenses cut down to the lowest point of republican simplicity and economy. To talk of paying a debt of $4,000,000,000, whose annual interest is $150,000,000,whilst $117,000,000 is annually wasted on three blotches of the body politic, the Army, the Navy, and the Church, and 40,000 men own all the land of the kingdom, and every sixth man is a pauper or a beggar, is simply an absurdity.[15]
Taking this view of the subject, the radical reformers of England have struck at the root of the evil—a remodeling of the institutions of the State; and, in the departments of finance and taxation, have confined their efforts chiefly to the work of retrenching the Government expenditures. Foremost among these, and especially in the latter field, has stood the robustJoseph Hume. According to the forms of the British Constitution, the annual appropriations for the supply of the bottomless gulf of expenditure must take their rise in the House of Commons. And there, before they commence their line of march to that bourne whence no shilling returns, they have to encounter the severe scrutiny and determined opposition of clear-headed, honest-hearted, open-mouthed Joseph Hume. He contests all money-bills item by item, fastening upon them like a mastiff upon a gorged bullock.
I was listening, a few years ago, to a debate in the House of Commons on the civil list. Lord Stanley (then a member) had just closed an impetuous speech, when a broad-shouldered, rather rough-looking man, rose, and deliberately taking off his hat, which seemed to be filled with papers, commenced marshaling lazy sentences, under the command of bad rhetoric, to the music of a harsh voice. A pile of parliamentary documents lay on the seat by his side, and he held a bit of paper inhis hand, covered with figures. My friend informed me it was Mr. Hume. He realized the portrait my mind's eye had drawn of the man who, by dint of tireless ciphering, had convinced the masses of England that they were the mere working animals of the privileged orders. His brief, plain speech was aimed at some measure supported by Stanley, by which the people were to be cheated out of a few thousand pounds, to pamper some titled feeder at the public crib. Stanley was racy and flowery. Hume's speech resembled his lordship's as little as Euclid's problems do Milton's Paradise Lost. He explained the figures on his paper, and drove the digits into Stanley by a few well-directed blows at "treasury leeches," and sat down. Mr. Hume is a walking bundle of political statistics. No other man will so patiently pursue a falsehood or a false estimate or account, through a wide waste of Parliamentary documents, till he drives it into the sunlight of open exposure, as he. But as to eloquence, he knows no more about it than a table of logarithms. He rarely makes a speech that does not contain a good deal of bad rhetoric, and an equal amount of arithmetical calculations. Entering Parliament thirty years ago, he immediately placed himself at the door of the national treasury, which he has ever since watched with the dogged vigilance of a Cerberus. He has been the evil genius of Chancellors of the Exchequer, worrying them more than the national debt or the public creditors; whilst sinecurists, pensioners, and fat bishops, have received an annual Parliamentary roasting at his hands. Delving among the corruptions of Church and State, he has laid bare the slimy creatures that fatten on the roots of those institutions, and suck out their healthful nourishment. Bringing every proposed expenditure of money to the test of utility and the multiplication table, he has opened his budget of statistics, night after night, and measured off columns of damning figures by the yard and the hour, contesting the sum totals and the details of the appropriation bills, backed sometimes by the whole force of theliberal party, often sustained by only a few radical followers, and not infrequently left wholly alone. Of course, he is occasionally felt to be a bore. But nothing deters him from pursuing the line he has marked out. Sarcasm is lost upon him. Wit he despises. Threats have no terrors for him. Abuse only rebounds in the face of his assailant. The House may try to scrape or cough him down—Lord John Russell's reproaches may salute his ears—Sibthorpe's clumsy abuse may fall on his head—Stanley's fiery shafts may quiver in his flesh—Peel may shower contempt upon him—but there stands clear-headed, honest-hearted, unawed Joseph Hume, entrenched behind a pile of Parliamentary papers, gathering up the fragments of his last night's speech, and displaying fresh columns of figures, for a renewed attack on some civil or ecclesiastical abuse, which has been hidden from everybody's sight but his, by the accumulated dust of a century. Under any other Government than one scandalously extravagant, and whose people are taxed to the last point of human endurance, such obstinacy as he has sometimes displayed, in obstructing the passage of financial measures, would be wholly inexcusable. But every expedient which the wit or pertinacity of man can devise, to defeat or diminish such plundering of the masses as he witnesses every session of Parliament, is not only tolerable, but a sacred duty. The objects of his guardian vigilance gratefully appreciate his services, knowing that no other man has done so much to expose monetary abuses, and pull gorged leeches from the national treasury, and turn them out to get their living from their native earth.
Let it not be supposed that Mr. Hume has devoted himself exclusively to exchequer budgets and appropriation bills. He has taken a leading share in all liberal measures, advocating Catholic emancipation, Parliamentary reform, West India abolition, and has long been an able champion of Free Trade. Nor do I mean it to be inferred from the "free and easy" style in which I have spoken of him, that he is not highly respectable,both as to talents and character. He is one of the best "working-members" of Parliament, and by constant practice and perseverance he has obtained a position amongst its able debaters. He was chosen Chairman of the Reform League, which was organized by Cobden and others, in the present House of Commons, to obtain equal representation and an enlarged suffrage, and he is the nominal if not the real leader of the present movement for Parliamentary reform.[16]
Defects of the Reform Bill—Origin of Chartism—The "People's Charter" Promulgated in 1838—The Riots of 1839 and 1842—The Vengeance of the Government falls on O'Connor, Lovett, Collins, Vincent, J. B. O'Brien, and Cooper—The Nonconformist Newspaper Established by Mr. Miall—Mr. Sturge—Organization of the Complete Suffrage Union—Character of the Chartists.
Defects of the Reform Bill—Origin of Chartism—The "People's Charter" Promulgated in 1838—The Riots of 1839 and 1842—The Vengeance of the Government falls on O'Connor, Lovett, Collins, Vincent, J. B. O'Brien, and Cooper—The Nonconformist Newspaper Established by Mr. Miall—Mr. Sturge—Organization of the Complete Suffrage Union—Character of the Chartists.
The old-fashioned Tories declare that the Reform Bill inscribed "Ichabod" on the British Constitution. Though it ushered in a better era, an experience of seventeen years has proved that power has not yet departed from the privileged few.
A few examples of its defects are given. For instance, Glasgow, with a population of 270,000, Manchester of 200,000, Birmingham of 160,000, Leeds of 130,000, were allowed two members of Parliament each; while Cricklade, with a population of 1,600, Shoreham of 1,500, Retford of 2,400, Wenlock of 2,400, were also allowed two members each. Finsbury, Lambeth, Mary-le-bone, and Tower Hamlets, with an aggregate population of 1,100,000, had two members each, whose eight votes were balanced by the members from Huntingdon, Marlborough, Dorchester, and Truro, with an aggregate population of 12,500. The entire metropolis, with more than 2,000,000 of inhabitants, received sixteen members, whose power in the House was nullified by the sixteen members of eight boroughs, with a total population of less than 24,000. Fifteen of the principal cities and towns in thekingdom, containing 3,500,000 people and 160,000 electors, were allowed thirty-two representatives, while the same number was assigned to twenty-seven boroughs, containing 170,000 inhabitants and 6,900 electors.
The inequalities in the distribution of the suffrage are not less striking. The number of males in the United Kingdom, of the age of twenty-one years and upward, is about 7,000,000. The number of registered electors is a little over 1,000,000. Thus, but about one-seventh of the adult males is entitled to vote. The suffrage is most unequally distributed amongst this one-seventh. The House of Commons consists of 658 members, which gives an average of full 1,500 electors to each member. But, 15 members are returned by less than 200 electors each—50 by less than 300 each—100 by less than 500 each—and so on, till careful calculations make it apparent that a clear majority of the House is returned by 200,000 electors, or one-fifth of the entire body, which body consists of only one-seventh of the adult male population.
In the distribution of members, reference was had to the supremacy of the landlord interest. Thus, South Lancashire, which swarms with a manufacturing population of more than 1,000,000, and has 25,000 electors, was balanced by aristocratic Lymington, with 3,300 inhabitants, and 150 electors, whom any lord can buy. West Yorkshire, the seat of the woolen interest, with 1,200,000 people and 40,000 electors, was given the same weight in the House as any two of numerous boroughs, with a joint population of 6,000, whose 400 or 500 electors were the cowering vassals of some great landed proprietor. In Lancashire and Yorkshire, whose skies are blackened with the smoke of their manufactories, there is one member for every 55,000 inhabitants, while rural Rutland has one for every 9,000, and corn-growing Dorset one for every 13,000. Manchester and Salford, the center of the cotton interest, with 300,000 people, send three members, and agriculturalBuckinghamshire, with less than half that amount of population, sends eleven.[17]
The usual complexion of the House is alike caused by and aggravates the evils that spring from unequal representation and partially distributed suffrage. In the House previous to the present, there were 205 members closely related to the peers of the realm; 153 officers of the army and navy; 63 placemen; and 247 patrons of church livings. Of the 658 members, there were only about 200 who had not either title, office, place, pension, or patronage. And the same is substantially true of the present House.
These details, which might be multiplied indefinitely, will enable a very ordinary arithmetician to answer the question, which theChartistshave rung in the public ear of England: "Does the Reformed House of Commons represent the people of Great Britain, and Ireland?"
The meager fruits brought forth by the Parliament elected under the reform bill, convinced a large mass of the enlightened working men, that Labor must look for relief to a radical change in the constitution of the popular branch of the legislature. They agreed upon a fundamental law for Parliamentary reform, to which they gave the name of "The People's Charter." Hence their name, "Chartists." The Charter, having been adopted by large numbers of Workingmen's Associations throughout the country, was ratified and promulgated in August, 1838, by 200,000 persons of the laboring classes, assembled from all parts of the kingdom, at Birmingham.
The outline of the Charter was mainly the work of Mr. William Lovett, a London cabinet-maker, one of God's nobility. It was perfected by Messrs. D. O'Connell, Hume, Bowring, Roebuck, Wakely, P. Thompson, and Crawford, then members of the Commons, who prepared the draft of an act of Parliament embodying its provisions. The leading points in the Charterare six, viz: Universal Suffrage, Voting by Ballot, Annual Parliaments, Equal Electoral Districts, No Property Qualification of Representatives, and Payment of Members for their Services. It is remarkable that these identical reforms were proposed forty years before, in an elaborate report by a committee of the "Friends of the People," of which the illustrious Charles James Fox was chairman.
And this is the essence of Chartism. Its principles, which fall like household words on the American ear, filled the heart of British aristocracy with dismay and wrath. Nor were the terror and indignation abated when their promulgation was followed by laying the "Great Petition," in favor of the People's Charter, bearing one million two hundred thousand names, on the tables of the House of Commons.
The Chartists were chiefly laboring men, dwelling in cities and towns. They justly expected countenance and aid from liberal Whigs who had protested against the aristocratic features of the Reform bill. They received neither. The cause of national representation was regarded as only the poor man's question, and as such it was left exclusively to the poor. The poor, thus abandoned to fight the battle single-handed and alone, nourished a fatal resentment against all above them. Far-sighted and pure-minded men among them urged the superiority of intellectual and moral means over brute force, in promoting their objects. Keen-eyed demagogues were not wanting to fan their resentment, and remind them that in their swart arms dwelt the physical strength of the country. Deprived of political power, (for the great majority were non-voters,) the mass lent a greedy ear to these wily counselors. Chartism being a knife-and-fork question to the laboring poor, starving men were easily induced to seize the pike and the torch under a promise of bread. Preparations for a rising were made. It was attempted in 1839. A few riots occurred, a few houses were gutted, a few wheat-ricks fired, a few cart-mares shot, and some human blood shed. The vengeance ofthe Government descended upon the deluded men—the military crushed the embryo insurrection—the courts imprisoned and transported the leaders—the noble principles of the Charter were involved in the stigma which fastened upon a portion of its advocates—the middle classes, who might have averted the disaster, were, for a season, frightened into a renunciation of the principles they had maintained during the discussions on the Reform Bill. A similar outbreak, stimulated by similar causes, and followed by similar consequences, occurred in 1842.
Governmental vengeance fell alike on the men of peace and the men of violence. Feargus O'Connor, a hot-headed bully and coward, who had stigmatized the pacific doctrines as "moral-force humbuggery," was sent to York Castle. William Lovett and John Collins, two noble specimens of the working classes, spent a year in Warwick jail. The young and brilliant Henry Vincent was lodged in a dungeon two years, for making the Welsh mountaineers "discontented with the Government." J. Bronterre O'Brien, a legitimate son of the land of Emmett, suffered twelve months in Lancaster Castle. Thomas Cooper, who dropped the awl, took up the pen, and wrote the celebrated poem, "The Purgatory of Suicides," was imprisoned two years and a quarter in Stafford jail. Other less conspicuous persons were incarcerated at home, or banished beyond the seas.
The election of 1841 returned a large Tory majority to Parliament, dissolved old party connections, and drove the radical reformers of the middle and working classes once more together in opposition to the common foe.The Nonconformist, a weekly newspaper, just then established in London, and conducted with marked ability by Mr. Edward Miall, took up the subject of a reform in Parliament, in a series of articles which powerfully argued the right of the working men to the franchise, and the necessity of an equalization of the representation. These essays were subsequently printed in a pamphletand widely circulated. Their calm and cogent reasonings, their hearty and fervid appeals, arrested general attention. Mr. Miall gave to his scheme the name of "Complete Suffrage." It only remained for a practical man like Joseph Sturge to give to what was so far but a happy theory, the form and vitality of an organized movement.
After some preliminary meetings, Mr. Sturge, who had recently returned to England from an investigation of the electoral system of the United States, assembled a National Convention, or Conference, at Birmingham, in April, 1842, composed of delegates favorable to the main points of the "People's Charter," but opposed on principle and policy to all resort to intimidation or force in the accomplishment of their objects. Many of the best and brightest minds of the kingdom were present. During its four days' session, the debates were animated; the feeling earnest and warm; but the excitement glowed rather than flamed. The Chartists were represented by Lovett, O'Connor, Collins, Vincent, and O'Brien, while Sturge, Miall, Rev. Thomas Spencer, and Rev. Dr. Ritchie, represented the Complete Suffragists. After full discussion, the six points of the Charter were adopted, and an association, called "The National Complete Suffrage Union," was formed.
The cause was now on a good foundation, and under wise control. The same month of the Conference, Mr. Sharman Crawford, a judicious friend of the non-voting millions, divided the House of Commons on a motion in favor of complete suffrage. Among the sixty-nine members who voted with him were Messrs. Bowring, Cobden, Duncombe, Gibson, Napier, O'Connell, Roebuck, Strickland, Villiers, Wakely, and Ward, all of whom held prominent positions in the House.
It would transcend my limits to detail the progress of the Complete Suffrage movement since its organization in 1842. During these seven years of Corn-Law and Irish agitation, so unfavorable for fixing the public mind upon the question of anorganic reform in Parliament, the Complete Suffragists have discussed their great proposition before the people, have returned several able advocates to the House, deepened the conviction that a thorough reörganization of the Legislature is asine qua nonto future radical reforms, and aroused a determination to place that subject on the Parliamentary "cards" so soon as matters that now occupy them are disposed of.
In the mean time, the Chartists proper have increased their numbers, as their Monster Petition of many millions, presented to Parliament during the last year, proves; and with the increase of numbers has come an abatement of their belligerent spirit, as their law-abiding conduct on that occasion shows; thus inspiring the hope of all good men, that when the great battle between the laboring many and the governing few shall be fought, Chartists and Suffragists will unite in a common struggle to make the Commons House of Parliament the representative of the common people of the realm.[18]
It would be doing injustice to some of the clearest-headed men in England to suppose that they for one moment regard the most radical reform in Parliament as the final remedy for the enormous evils that make one-eighth of the people of the realm absolute paupers, and one-fourth of the entire population paupers in all but the name. They look to the establishment of such a reform only as affording to the depressed classes an essential means for remodeling, on a basis of equality, the whole Governmental structure. They seek it, not as an end, but as an instrument to attain an end—a John the Baptist to herald the times and the men that shall make the crooked straight, the rough smooth, the inequalities level.
Scarcely any body of men have been regarded with more unintelligent horror, or subjected to more unreasonable denunciation, by the higher classes of England, than the Chartists.And yet, no section of British reformers are more worthy of admiration for the principles they avow, or of sympathy for the persecutions they have endured. It has been my good fortune to make the acquaintance of several of these men, to attend some of their meetings, and read many of their publications. I have never taken by the hand nobler members of the human family, nor listened to speeches that glowed with more eloquent devotion to the rights of man, nor perused papers more thoroughly imbued with the democratic sentiment, and which inculcated lofty principles in a style of more calm and lucid reasoning. Their publications dwell with emphasis upon the blessings of peace, the superiority of moral over physical means in the attainment of ends, the importance of education, of industry and economy, of self-reliance without arrogance, and of an independent and manly bearing in their intercourse with the world. Bad men are among them, who have often imposed upon their ignorance or inflamed their passions, goading them to violence and crime. But the mass are as far removed from the state of barbarism and brutality, which their traducers have assigned to them, astheyare from the utterance of truth or the practice of charity.
It stirs the blood not a little to see such men as Lovett, Collins, Vincent, O'Brien, and Cooper, suffer through long years, in dark and filthy cells, for teaching the people to be "discontented" with a Government that first denies them any voice in its administration, and then taxes them down to the starvation point, that it may pamper a bloated priesthood and an overbearing aristocracy at home, and build navies and equip armies to scour the seas and scourge unoffending tribes in the uttermost parts of the earth. However, those who know John Bull best say the only way to manage him is to mingle a little threatening with a good deal of blarney, when the conceited old bully, after a fearful amount of bluster, will yield a point—as witness Catholic Emancipation, Parliamentary Reform, and Corn-Law Repeal. Perhaps these pacific counselors areright; though a James Otis, or a Patrick Henry, with the cry of "No taxation without representation!" on their lips, would recommend that the towers of Windsor, and the minarets of Lambeth, be pitched instantly into the Thames.
A more particular notice of some of the persons who have acted prominent parts in the transactions above detailed, will be given in the next chapter.
Chartists and Complete Suffragists—Feargus O'Connor—William Lovett—John Collins—Henry Vincent—Thomas Cooper—Edward Miall—Reverend Thomas Spencer.
Chartists and Complete Suffragists—Feargus O'Connor—William Lovett—John Collins—Henry Vincent—Thomas Cooper—Edward Miall—Reverend Thomas Spencer.
In this chapter, I will give brief notices of some of the more prominent Chartists and Free-Suffragists.
Feargus O'Connorhas been styled "The Great Chartist Leader." In advocating the cause, he has suffered for his imprudences, if not for his principles. He is made up in about equal degrees of the braggart and the coward, the demagogue and the democrat—a legitimate product of the rotten institutions and turbulent times in which he was born and has flourished. With many good qualities and many bad ones, he had not the moral bravery to lead a reformation, nor the physical courage to head a revolution. Aspiring to do both, and wanting capacity for either, he failed in each. Respect for an impulsive man who has proclaimed good principles in bad times, and sympathy for a weak man who has felt the thorn of persecution from worse hands than his own, induce me to forbear further remark on the foibles and follies of one who is shorn of his influence to do much future good or evil. Better for Chartism if he had lived and died a Tory; though, with all his sins, he will be kindly remembered when Toryism rots in contempt.
William Lovett'smanly virtues and vigorous sense adorn a noble enterprise. Born in extremest poverty, he has struggled upward against the crushing weight of factious systems, to an influential position in society. While a young man, he wasdrafted into the militia—refused to be degraded into a machine to kill men at the word of command—was arraigned before a magistrate for the offense—terrified the justice by the boldness and ability of his defense—and was discharged from the service after seeing his little property confiscated and his family reduced almost to beggary. This petty tyranny fixed him in the purpose of preparing himself to aid in remodeling institutions that taxed him to the marrow, without allowing him any voice in the selection of his rulers. He worked at his trade of cabinet-making by day, and cultivated his mind by night. Throwing himself into all movements for the improvement of the laboring classes, he first attracted general notice by his connection with the London Working Men's Association, established in 1836. The many able addresses which this central body issued to the working men of the kingdom, and to the laboring classes in Belgium, Poland, and Canada, were prepared by him. These led the way for the Chartist movement. In 1838, he assisted Messrs. O'Connell, Roebuck, and other members of Parliament, in preparing "The People's Charter;" his part of the work consisting in drafting, theirs in revising, this noble and painfully celebrated document.
One of the main originators of the Chartist enterprise, he now gave to it his whole energies; and well would it have been had his pacific disposition controlled its direction. The National Convention of Chartists was in session in Birmingham in 1839. The people of that town, as was their wont, were holding a meeting in "The Bull-ring," to discuss questions of reform. The police, part of whom had been specially sent from London, were ordered to break up the meeting. They rushed upon the assemblage, and, with their bludgeons, knocked down men, women, and children, and dispersed the meeting. Mr. Lovett, who was secretary to the Convention, drew up and presented to that body a manly protest against these outrages. It was printed and circulated through the town. For writing that paper, he and John Collins (who had carried the manuscript tothe printer) were arrested for sedition, thrust into a dungeon, indicted, tried, convicted, and sentenced to a year's imprisonment in Warwick jail. On the trial, Lovett defended himself with skill, and his address to the jury commanded general admiration. While in prison, Lovett and Collins published a pamphlet of 130 pages, entitled "Chartism: A Plan for the Education and Improvement of the People." It is able and eloquent, filled with the noblest sentiments, and contains suggestions for the instruction and elevation of the masses, which would, if acted upon by the government, place England a century in advance of her present position. Near the close of their confinement, they wrote another paper, which I transcribe entire. The Melbourne Administration, "which meant but little, nor meant that little well," became ashamed of its treatment of Lovett and Collins, and offered to release them on their entering into bonds to keep the peace. Here is their reply. Read it, and see how contemptible a nobleman looks in the hands of a cabinet-maker and a tool-maker:
"Warwick Jail, May 6, 1840."To the Right Honorable the Marquis of Normanby, Her Majesty's Secretary of State for the Home Department:"My Lord: The visiting magistrate of the county jail of Warwick having read to us a communication, dated Whitehall, May 5, and signed S. M. Phillips, in which it is stated that your Lordship will recommend us to Her Majesty for a remission of the remaining part of our sentence, provided we are willing to enter into our recognizance in £50 each for our good behavior for one year, we beg respectfully to submit the following as our answer. To enter into any bond for our future good conduct would be an admission of past guilt; and however a prejudicial jury may have determined that the resolutions we caused to be published, condemnatory of the attack of the police, were a violation of the law of libel, we cannot bring ourselves to believe that any criminality attaches to our past conduct. We have, however, suffered the penalty of nearly ten months' imprisonment for having, in common with a large portion of the public press, and a large majority of our countrymen,expressed that condemnatory opinion. We have been about the first political victims who have been classed and punished as misdemeanants and felons, because we happen to be of the working class. Our healths have been injured, and our constitutions seriously undermined by the treatment we have already experienced; but we are disposed to suffer whatever future punishment may be inflicted upon us, rather than enter into any such terms as those proposed by your Lordship."We remain your Lordship's most obedient servants,"William Lovett,"John Collins."
"Warwick Jail, May 6, 1840.
"To the Right Honorable the Marquis of Normanby, Her Majesty's Secretary of State for the Home Department:
"My Lord: The visiting magistrate of the county jail of Warwick having read to us a communication, dated Whitehall, May 5, and signed S. M. Phillips, in which it is stated that your Lordship will recommend us to Her Majesty for a remission of the remaining part of our sentence, provided we are willing to enter into our recognizance in £50 each for our good behavior for one year, we beg respectfully to submit the following as our answer. To enter into any bond for our future good conduct would be an admission of past guilt; and however a prejudicial jury may have determined that the resolutions we caused to be published, condemnatory of the attack of the police, were a violation of the law of libel, we cannot bring ourselves to believe that any criminality attaches to our past conduct. We have, however, suffered the penalty of nearly ten months' imprisonment for having, in common with a large portion of the public press, and a large majority of our countrymen,expressed that condemnatory opinion. We have been about the first political victims who have been classed and punished as misdemeanants and felons, because we happen to be of the working class. Our healths have been injured, and our constitutions seriously undermined by the treatment we have already experienced; but we are disposed to suffer whatever future punishment may be inflicted upon us, rather than enter into any such terms as those proposed by your Lordship.
"We remain your Lordship's most obedient servants,
"William Lovett,"John Collins."
Having been confined to a narrow, filthy cell, and fed on the meanest fare, Mr. Lovett's health was so seriously impaired, that he did not recover his wonted vigor till nearly two years after his release from prison.
Mr. Lovett was a member of the Birmingham Complete Suffrage Conference in 1842, and his well-balanced mind and lucid speeches gave him a leading position in that body. For a few years past, he has been engaged in publishing works adapted to the wants of the laboring classes, and his pen has been active in their cause. He was the publisher of "Howitt's Journal," and contributed some of the best papers that appeared on its pages. In person he is tall and gentlemanly, has an intellectual countenance, and, take him all in all, is a rare specimen of the rich ore that lies embedded under the crust of British aristocracy.
John Collins, like William Lovett, came up from the ground tier of British society, and has brought along with him more of the marks of his "order" than Mr. L. He has rode out a good deal of rough weather in defense of Chartist principles. On his release from Warwick jail, he was received with the warmest enthusiasm by congregated thousands of his Birmingham neighbors. He afterward made a tour of Scotland, addressing audiences in the principal towns. I listened to one of his speeches. My mind having been filled with prejudices against him, I was prepared to see a monster. Butthere stood before me a stout, bold man, uttering the loftiest truths in a practical and pointed style, and with a tone and bearing conciliatory but firm—a man earnest in vindicating the depressed classes, who had shown courage in peril, endured persecution without repining, and now received applause without vanity—a nobleman by nature, a tool-maker by trade, but who never tried to make a tool of others, and was the last person who would submit to be made one himself.
The name of the young and eloquentHenry Vincentthrills the hearts of millions of Britain's laboring poor. While an apprentice in a London printing-office, he aided by extra work during the day in supporting a destitute mother and her children, while midnight generally found him absorbed in some book adapted to expand his mind. His intellect outran his years, and he became a radical reformer when yet a boy. At the age of 14, he made a speech to his juvenile companions on the then engrossing subject of Catholic Emancipation. The French Revolution next possessed his enthusiastic soul. He stood dumb with emotion when he first saw the handbill at the door of the newspaper office, headed "Revolution in France!" He rushed home, got his sixpence, bought the paper, and run through the streets announcing the event to all whom he met. Soon followed the Reform Bill excitement, which absorbed his energies. Although but 16 or 17 years old, he was chosen a member of a Political Union, and participated in its proceedings. Arriving at his majority in 1836, he resolved to consecrate his powers to the elevation of the laboring and disfranchised classes of the people. He joined with Mr. Lovett in the Chartist movements of 1837-8, traveled the country as a lecturer, and was immediately ranked among the most vigorous and brilliant advocates of The Charter. Such was his success among the hardy mountaineers of Wales, that the Government became alarmed, marked him for its victim, and, on his coming to London to visit his widowed mother, dragged him from her dwelling at dead of night, on a charge of sedition, thrust himinto a dungeon, tried him, convicted him, and sent him a year to Monmouth jail. The crime proved upon him was, using violent language and making the people discontented with the Government! Just before the close of his term of imprisonment, he was again arraigned on a similar charge, and doomed to another twelve months' incarceration. While in prison, he was treated with such barbarity that fears were entertained of a rescue by the Welsh, with whom he was highly popular, and he was removed to London. His journey thither was a triumphant procession, crowds gathering and cheering him at several of the principal towns on the route. While confined in a solitary cell in the London penitentiary, Mr. Sergeant Talfourd brought his case before Parliament, eulogized his character and talents, and arraigned the Government for the harsh treatment inflicted upon him. This woke up Lord Normanby, the Home Secretary, who visited Vincent, heard some very plain talk, had him removed to Oakham jail, and furnished with decent lodgings, and pen, ink, and paper. After suffering twenty-two months, (the Government having remitted two,) this pure-hearted young philanthropist was released, and the same day partook of a complimentary dinner, when he made a speech in defense of his principles and conduct, worthy of the theme and the man.
Soon afterward, at the general election in 1841, Mr. Vincent was invited to contest the borough of Banbury for a seat in Parliament, the whole body of non-electors, and a large minority of the electors, being in his favor. On the morning of the election, (the result being very doubtful between the Whigs and Tories,) a committee of the former offered him a large sum of money to withdraw from the contest. He had scarcely spurned the proposal, when a Tory deputation offered him £1,000 to abandon the field. He refused the bribe with scorn. He was defeated, but he retired with honor, leaving hundreds of converts to his principles behind him. He subsequently, on special request stood for Ipswich and Tavistock,having failed of carrying the latter borough by only 44 votes, against the combined power of the House of Bedford. At the general election of 1847, he polled a very large vote in Plymouth. His chief object in yielding to the solicitation of his friends to mingle in these contests was, to improve the opportunity they afforded him for bringing thorough democratic principles before the people.
Mr. Vincent united with the Free Suffragists in 1842, and during the past seven years he has traversed England and Scotland, addressing multitudes in favor of Peace, Temperance, Education, Free Trade, and Parliamentary Reform, winning a high place among the advocates of radical reform. His speeches are a continuous flow of rapid, fervid eloquence, that illuminates the reason, kindles the imagination, and fires the heart. In person, he is below the middle size, symmetrically formed, with very handsome features, graceful and elastic in his action as a deer, and his voice thrills the blood like a war-trumpet.[19]
Thomas Cooperis another original genius, who has forced his way into sunlight through the thick shell of British caste. Eating the bitter bread of poverty during childhood, he contrived, by means that throw fiction into the shade, to gratify a native taste for reading, drawing, and music. Laboring on a shoemaker's bench from the age of fifteen to twenty-three, he snatched from toil the opportunity to acquire a respectable knowledge of the Hebrew, Greek, Latin, and French languages, and of Algebra and Geometry—to commit to memory considerable portions of Shakspeare and Milton—to peruse the works of Hooker, Cudworth, Stillingfleet, Warburton, and Paley—and to compose some poetry and essays of his own. This he did by robbing sleep of its wonted hours, and whilehis miserable wages afforded a pittance barely sufficient to keep him and his mother from starving.
At the age of twenty-three, he dropped his awl and hammer, and emerged into the world. For ten years he buffeted a sea of troubles, dividing his time between teaching country schools and writing for newspapers; now accumulating a choice library of 500 volumes, and then parting with it, volume by volume, for bread. In 1841, while engaged as a reporter for theLeicestershire Mercury, he was directed to report a Chartist lecture. It was the first he had heard, and its principles found an echo in his bosom. He commenced a lecturing tour in support of the Charter, visiting, among other places, the Staffordshire potteries. While in that region, in 1842, occurred those serious disturbances which for weeks tossed the Midland counties on a wild tempest of riots. At first, the object was to raise the wages of the operatives by a general "strike." Demagogues fanned the flame, till it broke loose in arson, pillage, and other violent acts, resulting in a few instances in loss of life. Cooper was arrested, and finally arraigned on four indictments for riot, sedition, and arson. He was tried, and, though acquitted on the more serious charge, was convicted of the minor offenses, against every principle of law or reason. He was sentenced to two years and three months' imprisonment. One of the trials lasted ten days. Cooper defended himself with great ability, proving no unworthy antagonist for Sir William Follett. The barbarous treatment he received in prison gave him rheumatism, neuralgia, and other diseases; but it gave to the world "The Purgatory of Suicides." This poem appeared soon after his liberation, in 1845, having been composed in Stafford jail. It was highly eulogized in the Eclectic, Britannia, and other literary periodicals, and met with immediate success. In the preface, the author proudly says:
"I am poor, and have been plunged into debt by the persecution of my enemies; but I have a consolation to know, that my course was dictated by heart-felt zeal to relieve the sufferingsand oppressions of my fellow-men. Sir William Follett was entombed with pomp, and a host of titled great ones, of every shade of party, attended the laying of his clay in the grave. They propose now to erect a monument to his memory. Let them build it; the self-educated shoemaker has also reared his, and, despite its imperfections, he has a calm confidence that, though the product of poverty, and suffering, and misery, it will outlast the posthumous stone block that may be erected to perpetuate the memory of the titled lawyer."
"I am poor, and have been plunged into debt by the persecution of my enemies; but I have a consolation to know, that my course was dictated by heart-felt zeal to relieve the sufferingsand oppressions of my fellow-men. Sir William Follett was entombed with pomp, and a host of titled great ones, of every shade of party, attended the laying of his clay in the grave. They propose now to erect a monument to his memory. Let them build it; the self-educated shoemaker has also reared his, and, despite its imperfections, he has a calm confidence that, though the product of poverty, and suffering, and misery, it will outlast the posthumous stone block that may be erected to perpetuate the memory of the titled lawyer."
Mr. Cooper subsequently published other works, assisted in editing Douglas Jerrold's Magazine, contributed to Howitt's Journal, and delivered courses of lectures before various literary and scientific institutions in London; but, under all circumstances, giving his heart and his hand to all efforts to elevate the class of society in which he is proud to have had his origin.
The bare names of those who have borne a prominent part in the Chartist movement would fill pages. I must leave them, and have time to notice two men only who may be classed as Complete Suffragists proper, they never having acted with the Chartists.
Mr.Edward Miallhas been for several years the editor ofThe Nonconformist. He formerly officiated as a dissenting minister. Competent judges have pronounced this newspaper one of the ablest of the English journals; its conductor one of the ablest of English editors. Undoubtedly it stands in the front rank ofreligiousnewspapers. It has a clear comprehension of the mission of a religious journal in the current crisis of English affairs, and fulfills it with courage, integrity, and ability. It is the organ of no sect, but reflects the views of radical reformers of all denominations. It is the organ of no party, but utters the sentiments of the friends of progress. While it gives much attention to ecclesiastical affairs, it discusses all political matters that occupy the public mind, probing subjects to the core, laying bare corruption, and excoriating evil-doers in Church and State, without fear or favor,ranting or cant. The leading characteristic of its editorials is their searching and philosophical style of argument; while the hue of the rhetoric, the texture of the composition, are lustrous and compact, equaling in beauty and grandeur the essays of the first class of periodicals. It occasionally indulges in the most pungent sarcasm and lively wit, all the more biting and inspiring for being exceptions to the general rule. Every line breathes a deep earnestness for truth, and a warm sympathy with humanity. The writings of Mr. Miall are models of English composition.
At the last general election, Mr. Miall contested Halifax as the radical candidate; and his speeches during the canvass were only surpassed in strength and acuteness by the emanations of his own pen. In the outward semblances of the orator—the mere frame and gilding—he falls below the expectations of those familiar with his writings. An attenuated frame, a thin voice, a stiff demeanor, a monotonous gesticulation, seem too slight a frame-work to sustain the operations of so mighty a mental machine as his. Glorious dawn of England's better day, when the seats of her Parliament are thickly sprinkled with such men as Miall, Cobden, Sturge, Thompson, and Vincent.
Having stopped a moment to look at the plain garb of a Nonconformist minister, we will glance at a hardly less radical reformer, arrayed in the canonicals of the Church of England, "as by law established"—Rev.Thomas Spencer. As this gentleman has traveled and spoken extensively in our country, it will not surprise Americans to be told that, though a clergyman of the Establishment, he is also a thorough teetotaler, the enemy of commercial monopolies, a complete suffragist, and almost a democrat. Possessing superior talents, a rich flow of eloquence, a commanding and graceful person, Mr. Spencer has been eminently successful in instructing and delighting large audiences of his countrymen, and commending to their judgments and tastes themes that would have been repulsive inthe hands of men of less aristocratic associations. He took a prominent part in the Birmingham Conference of 1842, which organized the National Complete Suffrage Union, and was elected a member of the General Council of that association. He has mingled much with the poor of England, feels deeply for their wrongs, and boldly advocates their rights. How beautiful and cheering is the light reflected upon the wide-weltering chaos of surrounding darkness, by such clergymen as Thomas Spencer and Baptist Noel. They, as well as many kindred spirits of the Establishment, and the great mass of dissenting ministers, do not esteem it incompatible with their dignity, nor unbecoming their sacred calling, to take an active part in all questions, whether political or ecclesiastical, which vitally affect the interests of their fellow-subjects. I have never heard that their labors for the people in the forum diminished their influence over the people in the pulpit. Nay, it rather increases that influence by convincing the people that, in becoming ministers, they did not lose their interest in anything which concerns the well-being of their fellow men.
Ireland, her Condition and Prospects—The Causes of her Misery—The Remedies for the Evils which afflict her.
Ireland, her Condition and Prospects—The Causes of her Misery—The Remedies for the Evils which afflict her.
The "Irish Question" is environed with peculiar difficulties. An American might shrink from discussing what has puzzled and baffled Irishmen on both sides of the Atlantic.
The poetic, fancy view of Ireland is a mountain nymph, with flowing garments, wavy ringlets, glowing countenance, enrapt eye, and Venus-like fingers, thrilling the strings of a harp. The prosaic, real view is more like a mother, seated on the mud floor of a bog cabin, clad in rags, with disheveled hair, pinched features, eyes too hot and dry for tears, and skinny fingers, dividing a rotten potato amongst a brood of famishing children. Thanks to some of her orators, they have ceased to rave in fine frenzy about "the first flower of the earth, and the first gem of the sea." All friends of Ireland, native and alien, should stop ranting about "flowers," "gems," "Emerald Isles," "Tara's Halls," "St. Patrick," and such rhapsodies, and come down to the things of time and sense. Potatoes, as a standing dish, may grow stale; but to a starving people they are "roast beef and two dollars a day," compared with a surfeit of antiquated heroics. And yet, take up the report of a meeting for the relief of Ireland, whether held in Dublin or Washington, and half of it will be filled with such shining scum. Orators and writers addicted to such whims should be indicted for murdering the Queen's Irish.
The prime cause of Ireland's misery is the oppressive rule of England. For centuries she has been governed by and for the alien few, and not by and for the native many. England first wantonly subdued Ireland; then planted there an alien race and a rival church, to hate, worry, and plunder her; then, by the Catholic Penal Code, steeped her in ignorance and debasement; and finally, by bribery, and against the national will, abolished her Parliament, destroyed her nationality, and reduced her to the condition of a dependent province. Since the days of Cromwell, the ruling English have absorbed the wealth of the country, and carried it away to be expended in other lands. They have annually eaten out the substance of the people, and fled, leaving misery and poverty behind, and casting reproach upon the national character, and offering insult to the national spirit.
Since the Union, the legislation of the British Parliament, in respect to Ireland, has been an almost unbroken series of insults and injuries. I will mention two instances; and they are the very two that England always cites as proofs of her liberality. In 1828-9, the people of Ireland demanded Catholic Emancipation. The boon was granted; but it was accompanied by the disfranchisement of the whole body of forty-shilling freeholders; thus, in revenge, striking from the electoral body two hundred thousand names, which had aided in wringing the gift from the oppressor. Emancipation, granted on such ungracious terms, exasperated rather than appeased the Irish people. And in that other day, when England felt peculiarly liberal, and was ready to "give everything to everybody," she made Ireland an exception. The Reform bill made an odious distinction in the case of Ireland. England and Wales, with a population of about fourteen millions, were allowed 500 members of the House of Commons. Ireland, with a population of about eight millions, was allowed but 105. Bearing the same ratio as England, Ireland should have had 290. Scotland has two millions four hundred thousand inhabitants,and 53 members. In the same proportion, Ireland would have been entitled to 177. Thus, of the two most benign instances of English legislation over Ireland, during this century, one was accompanied by a positive outrage; the other by a most unjust disparagement.
The Established Church of England, planted by force in Ireland, has done little for it, except to unjustly tax and cruelly treat those who dissent from its ritual, and to foment and aggravate religious feuds. Of the eight millions of Ireland, six and a half are Catholics. Of the remaining one and a half million, not half a million belong to the Establishment. And yet, to take care of this half million, the Establishment has had 4 archbishops, 18 bishops, and 2,000 clergy—drawing annually from this potato-eating people £1,500,000; while the income of the clergy of the seven and a half millions of all denominations has not exceeded £500,000. The whole income of the Irish Establishment, from all sources of revenue, is nearly £2,000,000 annually. An attempt was once made to modify this enormous abuse. After four years of contention in Parliament, during which two ministries were turned out, the bill was shorn of its effective features, in order to pacify the Tory peers, and passed, still leaving the revenues to the Church of England, and the people to the Church of Rome.
But the English Church is only a blotch. The great sore is the Irish landlord system. The misgovernment of the country has conspired with landlordism to drive out capital, and destroy commerce, trade, mining, fishing, and manufacturing, thus throwing the mass of the population upon the land for subsistence. This has increased competition for the hire of the soil to an extent unknown in any other country, and has stimulated a grinding scale of rents, which has descended from the landlords to the middlemen, and from them to the small farmers, and from them to the poor laborers, growing more extortionate as it goes down, till the soil has been cut into minute pieces, which are held by short and uncertain tenures, precluding permanentimprovements, driving the mass of the people to the raising of potatoes, because they are cheap in the cultivation, and prolific in the crop, and yearly turning thousands out to beg, starve, rob, die of disease, or shoot their lessors at the expiration of their terms. One-third of the people of Ireland live (if they live at all) on potatoes, and the addition of a sprinkling of salt is a rare luxury. Two and a half millions are beggars, and Mr. O'Connell estimated the paupers in 1846-7 (the years of famine) at four millions. The main reliance of nearly half the nation, for food, is potatoes. God have mercy on them when that source fails!
With many noble exceptions, the large landed proprietors of Ireland are heartless, reckless, thriftless men. Nearly one-third of the country is a bog, three-fourths of which might be drained. Nearly five millions of acres, capable of cultivation, lie waste. An acre of potato land rents for from £5 to £10 per annum. Labor is abundant at the lowest rates. Yet these landlords have done little toward draining these bogs, enclosing these wastes, and improving their estates. Grant that for the four or five past years of pinching famine, attended with loss of rents, they have been unable to make improvements. It was just so before these years came, and has been so time out of mind. These landlords are generallyabsenteeproprietors, who feel no abiding interest in the prosperity of a soil which they forage but do not inhabit, which they own but do not occupy. Half of the very money voted to them in 1846-7, by Parliament, for the improvement of Ireland, they spent the next season at Paris, Florence, and Baden-Baden, there to swell the pomp of British aristocracy, while millions at home, whom it was intended to assist, ate garbage that an English pig would hardly nose over, or starved in hovels that the royal stag-hounds would not skulk into from a pelting storm.
The energies of the masses in Ireland being absorbed in a hand-to-mouth struggle for existence, they have neither time nor means to stimulate the industry of the country by establishingmanufactories, opening mines, carrying on fisheries, increasing trade, laying out roads, &c., nor to elevate and expand the national mind by founding common schools and seminaries of learning. The wealthy landlords and capitalists—the Besboroughs, the Lansdownes, the Devons, the Fitzwilliams, the Hertfords—who might do all this, will not; but, looking on from afar, cry to their stewards and agents, "Give! Give! Give!"
The result of this complicated system of bad government and bad management is painfully obvious. Ireland is nigh unto death of a chronic disease of famine, pestilence, agitation, despair, and insurrection.
And what is England's remedial process for this disease in one of her members? As a panacea for the miseries that she herself has to a great extent inflicted, England, at stated periods, administers to her victim-patient coercion bills and cold steel, blotching her surface with police stations and military camps. Sending her tax-gatherers instead of schoolmasters, dotting her soil with cathedrals instead of workshops, sowing her fields with gunpowder instead of grain, England affects to wonder that the crop should be famine and faction, misery and murder, improvidence and insurrection; and when the harvest is dead ripe, she sends over police and soldiery, armed with coercion bills and cannon balls, to cut and gather it in.
Sometimes England varies the prescription, or makes different applications to various parts of the body politic. Sir Robert Peel, for instance, prescribes bullets for Repealers, and guineas to a cloister of priests at Maynooth, to stop the mouths of the latter and the wind of the former, and the clamor of both. Then comes Lord John Russell with the Whig nostrum—money to carry the landlords to Baden, and a steamer to transport Mitchell to Bermuda—projects of railways to furnish hard work for laborers and fat jobs for contractors—a patch or two on a worn-out and inefficient poor-law, and packed juries for O'Brien and Meagher. So these Tory and Whig quacksadminister—inflicting wounds and doling out palliatives—never probing the ulcer, but striving to skim over its surface—while there stands John Bull, robbing the naked and half-dead patient, at the same time affecting to do penance, by paying the doctors, and giving alms to the victim.
What, then, is the remedy for these evils? Having been very imperfect in detailing their causes, I must be equally imperfect in pointing out remedies. Looking on from afar, it seems to me that some of the things that Ireland needs are these:
And first, as to a few temporary measures. Ireland needs a just and beneficent poor law. The present law is a mockery and a shame. The principle of the law should be, that every man who wishes for work shall have it, or be fed by the poor rates. Government owes bread or work to all its subjects. The rates should be mainly laid on the land, whereitis able to pay them, even if it be by sale under the hammer. This done, those landlords who apply to Parliament for money on which to live in improvidence, and in many instances in extravagance, would feel the pressure, awake to a consciousness of their condition, and, knowing that if they did not provide the laboring poor with work, they must furnish them with food, would either abandon their estates, or commence draining and planting the bogs and wastes. In either case, the laborer, for whose use God said, "Let the dry land appear!" would be restored to his inheritance.
The mass cannot wait for the meager relief of poor laws. Tens of thousands must emigrate by their own means or Government aid. The country is too densely populated for the present state of things. America should open wide her gates, to welcome the sons and brothers of those who have fought our battles, dug our canals, and built our railways, and, pointing to the unoccupied plains that stretch from the great lakes to Astoria, from the Rocky Mountains to San Francisco, say, "Go in and possess the land."
Associations should be formed, of true-hearted Irishmen, to reclaim the wastes, develop the resources, and revive the industry of the country—thus giving scope to capital and employment to labor.
The middle and lower classes should be more provident and careful, less wasteful and indolent, using thriftily the little they have, and adding to the stock by economy and enterprise. After traveling through half the island, I never was able to understand why a middling-man should waste his substance in riotous living, or a poor man should live in a hovel dirtier than a pig-sty, when pure water was abundant; or year after year let the rain drive through his thatched roof, when straw was rotting around him, merely because England would not grant a repeal of the Union.
The ignorant should, of course, be educated. But general education, it is to be feared, is a long way off. In the mean time, the better informed should instruct the people in their social duties, as well as their political rights, while such as are not utterly debased should exhibit more personal independence in opinion and action, do less of their thinking by proxy, show less subserviency to priests of all sorts, and less tolerance of demagogues of every shade of party.
But these things are only provisional remedies—mere clippings of the branches. The axe should be hurled at the root of the evil.