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Leader (1850-1860), 28th June 1851, Edition Country of 2, Page 20

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      Priests. Birmingham, June 18,1851. Si»,—...

      PRIESTS . Birmingham , June 18 , 1851 . Si » , —I was much pleased with a clever paper on the Philosophy of Christianity , which appeared in the Leader of last Saturday , but I should like to know " where it finds its authority | for an exclusive priesthood under the Christian dispensation . The office of a priest is required only where a sacrifice has to be made . When Jesus Christ died , the last sacrifice was offered , and the great atonement made ; then was the veil of the temple rent in twain , and the holy of holies was revealed , not to a privileged body of priests , but to the e lewho were at liberty to interpret for

      pop , themselves the mysteries of God . Jesus Christ was our great H igh Priest , in whom were centred all sacrifices , mysteries , and power , and he committed his charge to all who might believe in him . Christ was in every sense an heterodox priest . Baptized by a layman in water , over which no official claiming supernatural power had muttered ; anointed , not with oil from the hand of an orthodox-constituted priest , but with ointment lovingly poured on his holy head by a woman , and she a Magdalen ; preaching on the mountain ' s side , under the blue heavens , to wondering thousands , he delivered those doctrines which

      from their democratic nature are opposed to every assumption of spiritual power by any body of men . Under Christianity there is no such thing as " a holyorder set apart and endowed with , mysterious power . ' All those who do the will of God , are the priests of God , a contrite heart being the only sacrifice . In the future I see a grand Christian commonwealth , with Jesus Christ at its head , and here all are kings , priests , and prophets to the Most High . There is no church , for every house is a tabernacle of righteousness . F . is angry with Luther for overturning the old order of things : well , he did much , but he did not do enough ; he was but a particle of that stone which is to shatter the feet of Nebuchadnezzar ' s image . " Wait till the stone has become a mountain . S . Hixl .

      Protection And Free Trade. June 24,1851....

      PROTECTION AND FREE TRADE . June 24 , 1851 . Sir , — Perhaps never were words more perverted or more inconsistency and dishonesty advocated than under the terms , " Protection , " and " Free Trade . " TheProtectionists , on the one hand , selfishly aiming at conserving abuses and wrong , and claiming protection for wrong-doing . Whilst , on the other hand , the Free-Traders , as they are called are endeavouring

      to maintain their profits in human labour , trafficing in the blood and bones and sinews of men , women , and children ; thereby reducing the industrious and most useful portion of our population to the lowest state of misery , ignorance , vice , and degradation . And for what ? That those capitalists and profitmongers , already too rich , may more and more enrich themselves—whose " gold is their living God , and rules in scorn all other things but virtue . "

      Such , Sir , are the unholy aspirings of each faction who are now impeding the onward progress to that state of virtue and happiness designed by our Creator for the whole human race , and which would easily be attainable but for the ever-artful and cunning machinations of these proud , merciless , and selfish profit and money-seeking factions . Protection and Free Trade are both good in their proper sense and just application , but as made UBe of by these contending parties they are mere clap-trap terms to deceive and mislead—the Scylla and Charybdia of the present politics of the United Kingdom . To avoid the sinuosities and crooked policy of each , and to keep clear of both , the working-classes must steer a straightforward and persevering course of honesty , consistency , and truth , neither swerving to the right nor the left .

      " Fierce to the right tremendous Scylla roars , Charybdis , on the left , the flood devours . " That some of the working-classes understand this course was exemplified on Wednesday , the 18 th inst ., at a public meeting , convened by the " London Trades * Association , '' and held at St . Leonard's-hall , Shoreditch ; where and when Bronterre O'Brien opened the proceedings with a very luminous address , concluding with proposing the following resolution : — " That , while we admit that nations , like individuals , have an undoubted right to interchange their respective Burplus free from fiscal or other restrictions ; and while , consequently , we fully admit the principle of free trade as that which should govern international exchanges between peoples possessing freedom , and being proprietors of their own products , this meeting must , at the same

      time , protest against the present policy , falsely called free trade , as being unjust in principle , and destructive in practice of the rights and interests of the productive and debtor classes , including ? u 11 tax-payers , in an much as it is not accompanied with reciprocity , nor with any adjustment of public or private burdens ; and also , while we are compelled to pay taxes on those articles of foreign growth and production , which it is our interest to import duty free ( such as tea , coffee , sugar , from our own colonies ; timber , wines , fruits , spices , drugs , fura , hides , wool , and raw materials generally ) , our ports are moat unwisely and unjustly thrown open to Buch forei gn manufactured and agricultural produce as our own territories can uupply in auperabuudunce , by the employment of our own people , and upon the production of which the euboiatenco of millions of our own population depends .

      " This meeting , therefore , protests against such a Bystem , as being neither free trade , nor fair trade ; but a trick cunningly devised to cheapen home _ labour , in order to enrich the monied portion of society at the expense of the slavery , pauperism , and ruin of the productive classes of this country . " This resolution was seconded , in an argumentative speech , by Mr . A . Campbell , and ably and even eloquently spoken to and supported by several working men , and , being unanimously carried , was followed by a vote of thanks to Mr . O'Brien for his able exposition and powerful advocacy of the People ' s cause , in the presence of A Looker-on .

      Marriage With A Deceased Wife's Sister. ...

      MARRIAGE WITH A DECEASED WIFE ' S SISTER . Leeds , June 17 , 1851 . Sir , —Mr . Friend asks some one of your readers tc solve him . a difficulty arising from his interpretation of Scripture : if my understanding of the matter will help him to a solution , he is welcome to it . Levit . xviii . 6 , regards kinship or consanguinity , not affinity , and has , therefore , no direct relation to the proposed marriage law ; a wife ' s relatives are not equivalent to one ' s own kin ; hence a natural objection to marriage with a woman " near of kin" is none whatever to one merely " allied . "

      It is to no purpose to quote " They twain shall be one flesh" against the clear fact . The fact must interpret the possible sense of the speech—the speech cannot alter the fact . The 4 > hrase is simply a common Orientalism , signifying , " They two shall be treated as if they were one person , " just as with the commandment , ** Love your neighbour as if he were yourself , " i . e ., with equality . It is certain that a man cannot be his neighbour ; and it is equally certain that marriage does not literally make man and wife one flesh . There is and can be no interfusion of nature—no consanguinity .

      A passage following the text makes it plain that no consanguinity was intended to be expressed ; for Christ teaches that , for one cause at least , a man might put away his wife ( he cannot put away himself—a real " oneness" ) , and marry again -without committing adultery . A tie , therefore , thus dissolvable during the life of the contracting parties , was not a tie of blood or nature ; and if not so with the wife , much less with her sister . But " Might it not be inferred from Levit . xx . 21 , that it is equally unclean to take a wife's sister as a brother ' s wife ? " No ! I know that Bishop Jewel ' s authority is against my denial , but his reason —(•• it follows directly by the same" )—is neither precious

      nor brilliant . The analogy of the sexes is not , cannot be , and never was , established . As a personal sin , " indeed , adultery is the same both in men and women ; but it is not the same in its relations and consequences to the family . All nations make a distinction here . Read Levit . xx . 10 , and then ask if it ever was inferred by the Jews from this parallel text , that " the woman that committeth adultery with another woman ' s husband , they shall surely be put to death" ? Did the Jews put prostitutes to death ? If not , why not ? The fact is , that no more remarkable distinction is observed in all the Mosaic laws than this very difference of relationship between the sexes . The Bible , therefore , does not oppose the proposed law . —Yours very truly , F . R . Leks .

      Malthus Again! Brussels, June 1),1851. S...

      MALTHUS AGAIN ! Brussels , June 1 ) , 1851 . Sin , —Allow me to thank you for the insertion of my letter , and also for your comments upon it ; and although I am prepared to join issue with you on the charge that my ' assumptions are too wide , " I shall postpone their defence ; because I am still of opinion that we were mixing together two questions essentially distinct , and therefore that it will be better to discuss them separately . In my last letter I tried to show that the population theory would not be afFected by the nationalization of the land . I shall now state as clearly and as briefly as I can , what that theory is . Malthus ' s theory was as follows : —Nature Iuib endowed every description of organized existence with unlimited powers of increase ; unlimited , that is , except in one respect—the difficulty of procuring food . That there is no species of animal or plant which , if supplied with the requisite quulity of food , would not cover the whole earth in the course of a few thousand years ; and , consequently , that it is through the operation of this cause alone , viz ., the difficulty of obtaining subsistence ; that the various apecieu of plants and uniinulB are kept within their present limits ; that man forms no exception to this rule ; lie , too , is endowed with unlimited powers of increase , and these powers are kept in check by the same force which restrains all other animals ; hia numbers , like theirs , are kept down by means of food .

      would only advance as 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 . But population whatever its tendency might be , could never actual ! advance beyond the means of subsistence ; it cou ij only press , with a continually increasing force again t the barriers which stayed its progress . This it did Every increase in population was attended by an increased difficulty in obtaining food—with an increasp of toil , or an increase of want . To this doctrine of Maithus it was objected , that there is no such relation between the different rates of increase of population and food , as that stated Granting that population would increase in a geo . ' metrical ratio , why should food increase in only a ^ arithmetical one ? Why should it increase at all *

      Is it not evident that its rate of increase depends upon a multitude of causes altogether independent of the rate at which population is advancing ; such as the knowledge , skill , industry , and habits generally of the community ? It depends upon these , whether the production of food can be increased at all ; and if these a re favourable , why should not their increase be in a geometrical ratio , as well as in any other ?—at any rate , the relative advances in the geometrical and arithmetical ratios , on which you lay such stress , fails you—there is no such relation . And so objectors , having ascertained that the difference in the rates of increase is not exactly in the ratio stated , conclude , much to their own satisfaction , that there is no difference at all .

      Still there remained the old facts—an unlimited power of increase , and a limited quantity of land on which to increase . But to those who urged these it was replied , as you , sir , replied , that till the earth is fully peopled , and is made to yield all it is capable of yielding , those facts may be safely unheeded . When that day arrives , let the people of that day see to it . In order to judge of the correctness of this reply , it will be necessary to state the law of return to labour bestowed upon land .

      The law of return to capital and labour employed upon land is , that in any given state of agricultural knowledge and skill , an increase in the capital and labour employed is not attended with a proportionate increase in the produce ; by doubling the labour you do not double the produce ; or , if you double the produce , you must do more than double the labour , The truth of this law is proved by the fact that inferior land is cultivated ; for if , by increasing indefinitel y the labour upon the best land , the produce could be increased in proportion , why should any other ever be brought into cultivation at all ? Inferior land means that which , with a given amount of labour

      bestowed upon it , yields a less return . Why should this less return be submitted to , if , by employing this extra labour on the land already in cultivation , a better return could be got ? That it is so employed is a proof that it is at least as profitable to have recourse to a worse soil as to expend the additional labour upon a better ; that the limit at which a proportionate return can be obtained for additional labour has been reached ; and , consequently , that every increase in the amount of food , which an increasing population needs , mu 9 t be obtained at a continually increasing cost ; either the people generally must work more , or they must eat less .

      From this law we learn the answer to the common objection against the population theory — the objection , namely , that till the earth is fully peopled this theory is chimerical . The answer is , that the objection would be valid if all land were of equal fertility ; but all land is not of equal fertility , and whore any portion of it , except the most fertile , is obliged to be brought into cultivation , the limit is reached , other things remaining the same , at which population can advance , without deteriorating the condition of the people . of ft

      It is evident that , if the operation of this law continually decreasing return to labour bestowed upon the land , were not modified by some other law , the people of every thickly inhabited country would long since have been reduced to the utmost misery . This modifying law is the law of progress in agricultural knowledge , whose constant tendency is to throw the worse kinda of land out of cultivation , by enabling the better oncH to produce all the food required , and , consequently , to relieve the pressure of an increasing population . So now we have , instead of n geometrical ratio for population , and an arithmetical ratio for agricultural produce , population advancing in a geometrical ratio , and agricultural produce in an uncertain one ; a ' "

      the advocates of the population theory » r « trying since the advance in the quantity of food cannot \ n' < adjusted to the increase of population , to adjust the increase of population to that of food—a not unrieedlul task if Mr . Mill , iw right , bh I moHt firmly bcli <' «" is , in Baying that the condition of the great m : > nw of tho people , at any given time , depends upon whetliei population is advancing more rapidly than agrieuliurn knowledge , or agricultural knowledge more rap idly than population . And this adjustment they hope to make by inculcating upon all the naere < ln < hh <>* tll ° duty every man owes to society , to hi » children , llI 1 < to himself , not to bring being" into the world till no has a rational prospect of providing for them . W here i « tho hard-heartednesB of preaching wuch ft docmno as thi » ? I remain , ttix , & o ., E . lu

      We see , then , on the one hand , an unlimited power of increase ; and on the other , u limited supply of food—population tending to advance in a geometrical ratio , while the means of subsistence could not be made to advance in more than an arithmetical ratio—so at least said Maithus . Population , if unchecked , would udyftixce as 1 , 2 , 4 8 while food

  • Citation
    • Leader (1850-1860), June 28, 1851, page 20, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_28061851/page/20/