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Leader (1850-1860), 14th January 1860, Edition 2 of 2, Page 10

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      Reform:.—The Claim Of Chelsea. We Do Not...

      the first revision of consti tuencies in 1832 , and those which have since grown up , are so startling and so scandalous , that it is vain to hope for any political rest until they shall have been Take the case of Chelsea , for example . . -Within the confines of the extensive parish of St . Xmke , a great town has slowly but steadily risen up . Every portion of the region , once orchard , meadow , or marsh , is now covered with human habitations . Of these there are 8250 , forming one-and-ticeniy miles of streets , and rated in the county assessment at £ 234 , 000 a-year . Here , then , is an amount of rateable property—all of it of a town / and none of it of a county , description---three or four times as large

      as that of half the boroughs in the kingdom : yet these continue to send representatives to Parliament , while Chelsea is forbidden to send even one . For it is a mere mockery to sny that , being included in the county of Middlesex , it has a reasonable share in the election of Messrs . Hanbury and Byng . The present constituency of the county is upwards of fourteen thousand ; while the total ntunber registered for 1860 in respect of property in Chelsea is but six hundred and sixty-four . Nor would the reduction of the county franchise , with or without the division of Middlesex , as proposed last session , satisfy in any sense the

      reasonable requirements of the people . / They are not a rural , they are ail urban community . There is no one essential of industrial life in common between the two . The broad distinction between town and county representations is as old and as marked as the constitution itself ; and , if ever there was a case for its application , it is here . The citizens of Chelsea would naturally regard such a proposal as the offer of a mere makebelieve , in lieu of a substantial benefit ; and their discontent at the signal injustice of . which they would be the objects , would remain as bitter as before .

      But if the claim of Chelsea be strong m point of property , it is still stronger on the score of population . No fewer than 70 , 000 persons dwell- ; in'the 8250 houses that constitute the large unreiireserited town Aye have described . A more intelligent or industrious community does not exist . There are no great factories , indeed , with their loosely-coUected bodies of dependent workmen- but an infinite -variety of employments occupy the physical energies of the many , and the intellectual attention of the few . There is , besides , . a numerous class of individuals who live upon the incomes they have realised , for the most part , by commercial pursuits elsewhere ; and who , possessing leisure and independence , are es p ecially qua lified to exercise a right electoral power , Schools are nuinei-ous , and well maintained . IBenevdleut institutions of all kinds abound ; .

      and places of religious worship , erected , with one exception , by voluntary contributions , are many and well filled . Liable to the faults arid errors that beset us all , it can , at least , be said in their behalf that they are politically stainless , and electorally uncorrupt . Are Harwich and Gloucester , Norwich and Wakefield , Pontefract and Dover to retain tho privilege they have so shamelessly abused , and shall a new and unsullied community be left to mingle indistinctly in the crowd that throng the county hustings ? If there be no hardship or injustice in thus confusing dissimilar callings , habits , and interests together , wiry not pass a general law , that ' whenever , a borough constituency was fpund

      to be corrupt , its punishment should bo to let its voters sink into the mass of county electors , who , it may be supposed , arc too numerous to be bribed . Tins might be a clumsy sort of remedy , but , at nil events , it would possess the merit of beingimpartial , if not critically , just . Tho manner in which Chelsea has hitherto been treated is precisely the reverse , for its inhabitants are denied tho -separate representation -which the most venal towns in the kingdom retain ; and this privation continues to be inflicted without the shadow of imputation or suspicion . If the forthcoming Reform Bill be good for anything , it will assuredly put an end to an anomaly so flagrant as this .

      38 The Leader And Saturday Analyst. [Jan...

      38 The Leader and Saturday Analyst . [ Jan . 14 , ] 860 .

      M. Bastiat. It Has Lung* Ngo Been .Remar...

      M . BASTIAT . IT has lung * ngo been . remarked that man is placed under the oinpiro of pleasuro and pain , which woo him on from birth tp death , nml guide him from evil to good , from wrong to right . All consciousness is either one or tho other , and man would discard the most profound knowledge ns worse than worthless wore it always painful , and would hug for ever to his bosom tho shallowest cm > r , did it novor give liim a pang . In tin ' s system pain precedes pleasure , and goads man on to secure enjoyment ; appetite stimulates labour , imd Inborn" sjippliqs abundance . Painful doubt or restless curiosity urges inquiry , and ends in knowledge . The rulo is general . Want of some kind . or other is the spur to nil exortions . Tolosson fjisiress , to relievo poverty ., to diminish disoase are nt present and ibr-ovor tho objects of watchful philanthropy . Tho precedence of pain , or want in tho eystoin , necessarily rivota attention first on it ; its pleasurable or useful consequences are only ascertained by Assiduous uuel careful observation . We are slow to learn that from

      hunger and want * and doubt and suffering , spring all the wonders of industry by ¦ which man has fertilised and adorned the earth , and all the knowledge he has gained of the heavens . The persons who devote themselves to niaking such observations and •' ascertaining * the consequences of the exertions' of individuals to avoid pain ,, study social or political economy : they often incur reproach , because they have not yet discovered and classified all the consequences of the universal pursuit , and differ amongst themselves in describing them . From this circumstance , combined with the abstract nature of the subject , the progress of the public- m this , useful knowledge has not been great , and the paiii or suffering . t-liat always impels exertion is ever better known , and ever more continually present to the mind of all , than the beautiful and wonderful social harmonies which result from the exertions it calls forth .

      To describe these , and trace the steps by which they are brought about , is the object of the last work , " Harmonies JEconomiqves , " of the late M . Fbedebic Bastiat , the last and the greatest of the political economists of France . * In our language a literal translation of the title would give rise to misunderstandings , and therefore we call these harmonies social rather than economical , our term more truly expressing the great object of the work than the term employed by the author . To describe the social liarrnonies which result from each individual exerting , himself . to'get rid of pain , avoid suffering , and secure enjoyment , is the purport of 1 L Bastiat ' s work .

      Truly wonderful , when brought under our notice , do we find these results . Taking the first example M . Bastiat refers to , but adapting it to our day and country , let the reader carry back his views to the time when the late Lord Macaulay , the son of a merchant trading to Africa , was a . student at Cambridge . He obtained there , subsistence , clothing , lodging , books , instruction , diversions : — inshort , a ¦ . multitude of things , the production of which-required tlie-Tabour of a considerable , number of persons hi different places , and through a considerable period . In return for the immense services of-which he enjoyed the fruits he could render no services whatever . He was in training to render services hereafter . How , then , came it about that the many men whose labours produced the

      things he enjoyed resigned them to him ? The explanation is familiar . Ilis lather had property—hftdmimy years before performed some similar labours for merchants or princes in Africa , and in return had obtained , in the shape of hard cash or stock warrants ,, a right to require at his convenience , that the services of other men sliould be rendered to his son . Society-r—or those labourers who . supplied the wants of bis son—paid him for labour / . performed' long : before . If we follow in . thought . "the course of the many transactions-winch intervened between services rendered ; j ' . eara before in Africa and young Macaulat nourished and taught at Cambridge , we shall see that every person who took part in performing them ,

      including , of course , the planter who grew the cotton suul the spinner and weaver wh ' o manufactured it , of which the youth's shirts were made , had been duly paid for his labour . A right bo claim services accrued in Africa , passed in succession from band to hand , sometimes in wholesale masses , at others in retail fractions , till the consumption by the youth and the services of the father to society were fairly balanced , Over such results penal and civil laws have obviously very little influence . They are specimens of similar results and similar harmonies to be found in every part of society , and these it is the business of political economists to ascertain and desci'ibe .

      Dr . WnATELY has given an admirable description of tho manner in which London , with a fluctuating population , is continually subsisted—the daily supplies of each article being so nicely adjusted to the wants of the people , that there never is any considerable waste , nor any risk of famine . AH this great work is done by producers , wholesale and retail dealers studying only their own private interest- ?—driven , in fact , by their own wants , and watching attentively the wants of others . The daily supply of the metropolis implies the daily continued labour of Chinese , of negroes in tho West Indies , of slaves in the United States , and of men in almost every part of tho world , and engaged in almost every known ' species of industry .. Tho whole is the result , as Dr . Whately says , of the benevolent design of Providenco , and ho doubts whether rational freo agents

      thus made to co-operate , by motives addressed to tho will , in n . system indicating beneficent wisdom , bo not more ndmirablo tlinn tho arrangements of the material world formed' by corporeal particlesacted on by gravity and impulse . When we remember , as M . Bastiat would remind us , that -every one of the industrious persons in cvory part of the world , who every day contribute to thisgreat result , h duly paid for his services in spite of restrictive tariffs " and falsified coinage , and can in turn satisfy his own wants by labouring to satisfy those of others , distant in time and place , tho phenomena cannot fail to excite wonder * nnd revoronoo . Ill truth , they arc so wonderful , that , were they not made practically minilhu *

      to us by tho impulse of want before we are driven by curiosity to investigate them , wo should bo lost in astonishment , and probably give ourselves up to worshi p and cease to work . Wonder would absorb tho mind and extinguish the species . This is another specimen of the many social harmonies which M . Bastiat exploits and explains . . Such results can only bo brought abgut Jby , exquisite moelinnis ' m , which is properly called " tho natural organisation ofsooieti / . In this groat machine the main-spring is individual want , eauji whool or pinion being capable of learning , comprehending , reasoning , labouring , orrhig . T-discovering , his errorand so rectifying and im-

      , * Harmonics Eoonomiquoa, Pur M. Frisd....

      , * Harmonics Eoonomiquoa , pur M . Frisd . JJastiat . I ' uris , Qul ' lluumo ut Oo .

  • Citation
    • Leader (1850-1860), Jan. 14, 1860, page 10, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_14011860/page/10/