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    ' March 31, I860.] The Reader and Saturd...

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    WHO'S TO BLAME? IT ERANCE can ho.longer ...

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    Panic-Mongers. Rithh Now Reform Bill Has...

    Looking bade now , we see . that Teix and Wallace were not the murderers and atheists that contemporary historians would have represented them . When the ¦ Jacqueries had just roasted a , counti-y gentleman whole and distributed hirer hi joints among his ground-down tenantry , we might have excused the alarmist tone that the Times has ' . lately , with feigned fear , sometimes assumed . Because some 300 . 000 more voters are proposed to be added to the election roll ,, is that any reason we should have the timid old constable of the Press spring-ing-his rattle , and waking all the old women in the neighbourhood with the clatter ? Is Bristol , going- to be sacked again- bv the potwallopers , as in the old Reform days ?—or are the Chartists going- to meet . at ; Kennington ? Are clumps of pikes moving- about in Yorkshire?—ov is anybody trying- to put stout country gentlemen on the srjit , as in Froissakt's . unhappy times ?

    No , cry the ultra-crepidarians , but we do not know what may come , if things goon . Reformers are weakening the tics of tradition , setting us loose on a sea of change ; it is impossible to know where we shall stop . Representation is being-severed from property . This habituating of the mind to constant innovations must lead to changes not yet dreamt of . Peinoeraey ^ is like the grave , it never surrenders what is once given to it — the more it is fed the more it grows . So shrieks the rattle—so frightened , or pretending to be frightened , scream out the parliamentary croakers . They are horrified to learn that the present scheme is calculated to be sufficient for only the next thirty years . This , they say-, is . ' -heaping- change on change . , L ^ economic and penurious fathers , these small statesmen are . angry that their boy grows so fast , and requires new clothes every quarter . These arc the sort of worldwould law to

    people who .- if th j had any voice in the - ., pass a stop the rotation of the seasons , and the ebb and flow of the tide . They are quiet people , who remind one , in their timid and selfish acquiescence with existing things ; of James I ., who his enemies represented , as hobbling down a flight of stairs with " Pience—peace I " written upon every step * They are . like people-who , ¦ haying . got a seat in a crowded room , shrug their shoulders , and wonder- people make such a fuss about standing . One class of 'these . croakers , draw all their terrible analogies from the state of America , winch , regardless of sail reasoning , they will insist on tracing to democratic rule . There may not be a political evil there that we could not parallel in our aristocratic country , yet all American , imperfections they attribute . to democracy- —to that the unjust taxation-, the unjust voting * the trading for places , and the bidding for the voices of the

    mob . Ivow all these alarms are as groundless as . they can be , andmaiiy of the alarmists know they are groundless , and use them merely as scarecrows to keep birds off their political seed-plots . Tlie British constitution is too much of the broad-wheeled waggon to be easily run away with by modern phaetons . It is no " spider-wheeled American trotting-car , " and for a drag it has all the country gentlemen of England and the leaders' brains of all the Tories of the London press . The clanger , is not in giving , hut in refusing the working class power . Christianity tells us in the sight of God all souls are equal . The . ' Grave , cries" out to us the same lesson ; and Death is the greatest of all levellers , and democrat to the backbone . ' . ' -,

    Nothing will more secure the love of the working man to his country than giving him an interest in that country . Better educated , every day he begins to feel that ho is a political serf , a cypher in the State ; and when once lie feels that , and questions the right of those ' who keep him underfoot , the Tories will have no want of agitation to complain of . TJie more mem got / it to govern themselves , the fitter they will become to govern others . The greater the number of the men who learn to think , the greater must be the number of voters . ItM not for us to invent claims for the working 1 man ; bub when he dincovers his own rights , he must have his o ' aiojs granted- —and he will ; for wider and wider must grow the bas ? o of our English constitution ; and the wider the base , the stronger will be that pyramid—the wonder of the nations .

    It is in vain for the Aristooruts to pretend tlmt the present is a peculiarly unseasonable time to . grant Reform , . now that Franco is building up a colossal despotism , and no longer " conceals her thirst for general empire . " "Is this the time , " cries the Inhume ] of , the House , " when you should still further deviate from that . old ,, that free , and thait aristocratic institution , wjiich lids formed t . liq Empire of England , and framed the Ijhortios of Englishmen ? " Yos , wo answer to the veteran Tory croaker—the boat of all time * . Tho roof is never so grateful as when the storm blows ; a friend never eo uflefnl a /* when you are hounded by-misfortunes . Mon will novor fight bo well for a country ns whon'they have fltakos in that country , and feel that it is tho country that represents their wishes mid their hopes .

    The working mnn ia no longor , as one would think from theso eroultijiK ; speochos , a half-naked savage , smeared with blue wav-pauix , and eating hia poor relations in cannibal pion ; ho ia no longer the horrid serf that followed Wat tho Tyler , or Jack Capk tho bricklayer . Ho is no longer the maniac robol that raved among tho burning houses in Brintol , or was trodden underfoot by tho retentions yooinanry at Ptiterloo , any more than ho is tho handsome oriii ' tmhan with flossy haif and piercing 1 eye , that you hoo in Sunday-at-horno tracts , But he is ovory day petting 1 more and more tli . e quiet , 'pertinacious aasovtor of hh own rights—waiting patiently , und porhiips somewhat » s stolidly , till they do come , 'but still resolute ami doturniinod not to bo staved off , or Hholvod , or wii-xod from his purple byaijly orios of alurm and old-woman denunciations . Why arc six million

    fa-milies of working men to be excluded from all voice in the State ? Why should one million families only be admitted to the privilege of voting P Are . they criminals , or idiots ,. or in what has poverty incapacitated them , that theyshould bedebarredfrfcinall political privileges ? And why , the moment they approach with their claims to enter the most out-lying door of the Parliament House ; should these alarmists begin screaming and clattering like " a ship-load of monkeys in a gale of wind , " as if . they were robbers , assassins , burglars , felons , rebels , and infidels , bent on robbing the political orchard , on defacing the political decalogue , on undermining the Constitutional pyramid—on breaking down property , wealth , and all other Conservative agents , and beating them into the gory mire of univers :- ! anarchy—of beheading privilege and monopoly wherever to be found ?

    These alarmists do a most mischievous work . They tend to widen the gulf that rolls between classes—to make the man of property regard every mechanic as a concealed rebel with a revolver in his pocket ; and to make the mechanic consider the man of property a false , plausible , heartless , selfish defender of his own privileges and accidental wealth . It turns the two classes into enemies , and leads to a sort of verbal civil war . It is true that the calmer and more intelligent observers of political straggles know well , that the modern mechanic is no . more inclined to rebellion , than the Tory gentleman is inclined- to despotism . However indissolubly the historian may generally connect Toryism , high-church , arid divine right , lie knows well that if the one party hold back a little too much , the other party often but he also ell

    are inclined from mere pugnacity to go ori too fast ; .- w knows that no country was ever yet destroyed by necessary Reform , but , on tile contrary , by the obstinacy of favoured classes . , by resistance torjnst claims , by insolent contempt for the masses , by blind an tagonism to secretly growing power , by- intolerant ¦ assertions ,-of obsolete and bygone right ' s , by ridiculous and unmaintainable assumptions . Let these croakers take warning , and take courage . The mechanic ,, we . can-. ' assure the innocent Bucolic gentlomen , is a very quiet and good creature when properly treated . There is not the least danger of the clubs being invaded by the factory ™ en—no bloody thumb will pollute the white satin of their drawingr moms : let them take great comfort , they will not have their , laurels trod underfoot , by tins Bill , nor will a single hob-nailed shoe trample-up

    their gravel walks . The Reform Bill will admit a few more voters of a mental ( ahbre q ' tiite equal to those already forming an integral part of the constitution , and it will create no more disturbance in England than a stone thrown into a stagnant ' pond does , when it has once got to the bottom of the lazy mud . .

    ' March 31, I860.] The Reader And Saturd...

    ' March 31 , I 860 . ] The Reader and Saturday Analyst . 301

    Who's To Blame? It Erance Can Ho.Longer ...

    WHO'S TO BLAME ? IT ERANCE can ho . longer sneer at England for not having parti-• cipated in her war for a grand principle . England ' s vast talk ings and paltry doings in behalf of Italian freedom can no longer be thrown in her-teeth . ' There is a flaw which admits of exact measurement in the escutcheon of the Empire of peace , and a rent ia the banner of the " idea , " just such a rent as one sonnet imes -finds it convenient to discover in' the veil of . a beauty or the . mask of a hypocrite . Wo find that an idea , like Benkei . ey ' s ideas , c-nn be , to all ordinary appreciation , a very solid thing . Wo dislike this annexation of Savoy ns much as any of our contemporaries , and we doubt not that selfish policy , if pursued , will meet with its usual reckoning . It was a case for tho united action , in . the police point had been fur th

    of view , of the Great Powers , if such union , possible , e purpose of absolute prohibition , at the risk even of war ; not a case lor England to take up single-handed at the present juncture at all risks—the risk of vexing Savdinin , or -appearing to hold out tho hand of good fellowship , to Austria . Therefore , a strong governmental remonstrance , unaccompanied with irritating personal abuse , was the proper measure for England ; hereafter , should any similar performance' he anticipated—whethor of the legerdemain or tovr defurco kind—it is to bo hoped that the other Powers may he more in a position to aet in concert , and ho to remonstrate with , effect , and that England may not he found to have committed her-, sell' to a Rcliisti , isolated , JJiu < ina \ drnl > , and purely commercial policy . If so wo shall have , sooner or later , to nay of tho French what CntnicuiLL said in his angry prejudice of the Scotch : —

    " A fatal race Wliom 0 oi > in wrath contrived to place To scourge our oriincn and gull our pride , A constant thorn in England ' s side ; ' Whom llrsb our groutnoHfl to oppose God in his vonjjimuoo marked ( or foas ; Than more to stsrva liia wrath Till omla , And more to curse m , marked for friends . However , in this particular oaso , Enghuxl is certainly'loss concerned than others who have chosen to nutter in comparative Hil .-nco ,

    wJiilnt lior own knnclc of iiecjuimtiori , and her empire , whioh ' -. ovea Hukku long ago culled "invicHoiiHly" largo , ought to lnnlco her a little deliento in remonstrance . One , at leasit , of the ( lungers Hoom 8 to bo dhuhiUihed , which in another of bin Irontiaos ¦ BuitK . n ( tonfliderod to ha coiisequont upon the French annexation of Snvoy , in-( lieatod in the following pasHngo , of whioli , with its eontpxt , wo very candidly mnlce a proHont of ' to Mr . Kinolakis and hin suite , wondering : that it haanothetin a |) propviat ( id bofore : — " In U » cojisoquoruMw , the surrender of Savoy was to make a surrondor to Franco of bwitzorland and Italy , oi' both which countrieu Savoy is tlio koy , & o . ( Observations ' on tho ConduoC ( f tho Minority . ) Italy , with tho

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), March 31, 1860, page 9, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_31031860/page/9/