Current:

Leader (1850-1860), 12th October 1850, Edition Country of 1, Page 687

Page 687
Page 15
15 of 24

On this page

  • Text (3)

      Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.

    • Untitled Article

      Untitled Article

    • Untitled Article

      Untitled Article

    • Untitled Article

      Untitled Article

  • Transcript

    • Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.

      Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.

      Untitled Article

      stances . It is time we gave up the vague and indefinite mode of thinking and speaking customary on this subject , viz ., that a man is a free agent , that he can do as he pleases , take his choice , &e . A man must act in accordance with the laws of his being , in accordance with his nature ; and the question , ° therefore , is , —What are those laws ? What is that nature ? We know nothing of the real nature or essence of mind or matter , and we cannot , therefore , say how far or in what way they may really differ from each other ; we can only judge of results ; but , whatever may be the nature of the internal force ,

      which we shall call mind , —whether self ' existent , indestructible , pre-existent . or resulting , —few , I think , will now dispute that it acts through organization , and that the brain is its organ . The attention which has been paid during the last fifty years to cerebral physiology has put this fact beyond a doubt ; and I believe also that the other fundamental propositions of the phrenologists have been equally proved , viz .: — «• That the brain is not a single organ , but many , manifesting a plurality of faculties . " " That vigour of function is in proportion , cceteris paribus , to the health and size of the organ . "

      This cccteris paribus we have found to be of more importance than was originally ascribed to it , for as much almost depends on quality of brain and temperament as on size . For the proof of these propositions we must refer to the works of Gall , Spurzheim , Combe , and other phrenologists ; assuming that they are proved , their consequences will be found to be most important . I shall give only one short quotation in confirmation , from a philosopher of an entirely different school , but whose name is

      deservedly of great weight . Baron Liebig , in his " Animal Chemistry , " says , "Physiology has sufficiently decisive grounds for the opinion that every motion , every manifestation of force , is the result of a transformation of the structure or of its substance ; that every conception , every mental affection , is followed by changes in the chemical nature of the secreted fluids ; that every thought , every sensation , is accompanied by a change in the composition of the substance of the brain . "

      If , then , vigour of function is in proportion to the health of the organ , a man feels justly or kindly , not in proportion to his familiarity with certain truths , but accordingly as the parts of the brain connected with these feelings are large and healthy . If this be true , then those who think that this world is to be changed by an idea—that mankind , having imbibed an erroneous abstract notion , have only to be put right to change their state and action—are altogether mistaken . The deductions from this view of the question are most important , and , if you think them likely to interest your readers , I will continue the subject in future letters . I am , Sir , faithfully yours , Charles Bray .

      Untitled Article

      SOCIAL REFORM—REPEAL OF THE LAWS OF ENTAIL AND PRIMOGENITURE . Cha-mbehs ' s Journal versus Mr . Joseph Kay . London , September 23 , 1850 . Sir , —As you have frequently enlightened your readers with disquisitions on Social Reform as intimately connected with a thorough alteration of our proprietary laws , I venture to crave insertion of a short notice of Mr . Kay ' s valuable work , and of some remarks on it that appeared in No . 348 of Chambers ' s Edinburgh Journal , in an article signed W . C , indicating the article to have proceeded from the pen of one of the editors of that widely-circulated

      miscellany . Mr . Kay first lays before his readers the sources from which the foreign materials of his book have been chiefly derived : — " During the last eight years ( says he ) I have travelled through Prussia , Saxony , the Austrian Empire , Bavaria , Wirtemberg , the Duchy of Baden , Hanover , Oldenburg , Lombardy , Switzerland , France , Belgium , and Holland , as well as through England , "Wales , and parts of Scotland and Ireland . I undertook the greater part of these journeys in order to examine the comparative condition of the peasants and operatives in these several countries , the different modes of legislating for them , and the

      effects of these different modes of legislation upon their character , habits , and conditions . 44 If ( continues he ) the object of government is to create an enormous wealthy class , and to raise to the highest point the civilization of about one-fifth of the nation , while it leaves nearly three-fifths of the nation sunk in the lowest depths of ignorance , hopelessness , and degradation , then the system hitherto pursued in Great Britain is perfect ; for the classes of our aristocracy , our landed gentry , our merchants , manufacturers , and rich tradespeople are wealthier , more refined intel

      in their tastes , more active and entcrprizing , more - ligent , and , consequently , more prosperous , than the corresponding classes of any other country in the world . " But , if we have enormous wealth , we ought to remember that we have enormous pauperism also ; if wo have midiilc classes richer and more intelligent than those of any other country in the world , we have poor classes , forming the majority of thopeople of this country , wore ignorant , more pauperized , and more morally degraded than the poorer classes of most of the countries of Western Europe . Arid here it is that Englishmen might

      well afford sometimes to forget their pride m their own country , and to learn a lesson from other lands . " It is this Ride of the foreign picture that I propose in this work to describe ; not that I forget wherein our country is first among the nations ; but because I remember wherein other countries have outstripped us , and because I believe more good is done by exposing our negligence , and by examining the grounds of our prejudices , than by idly flattering ourselves that we have done all we can , and that the results are fully

      satisfactory . , , . - ,. " I do not hesitate , then , to affirm , —and the proof of this affirmation I shall immediatel y show , —that the moral , intellectual , and social condition of the peasants and operatives of those parts of Germany , Holland , Switzerland , and France , where the poor have been educated , where the land has been released from the feudal laws , and where the peasants have been enabled to acquire property , is very much higher , happier , and ^ more satisfactory than that of the peasants and operatives of England ; and that , while these latter are struggling in the deepest ignorance , pauperism , and moral degradation , the former are steadily and progressively attaining a condition , both socially and politically considered , of a higher , happierand more hopeful character .

      , " I think it will appear from the following pages , that the remarkable improvement which has been witnessed in the condition of a great part of the German and Swiss poor since 1800 , has been the result of two causes . 1 st . The admirable and long-continued education given to all the children ; and , 2 ndly . The division of land among the peasants . " The foregoing extracts from Mr . Kay ' s work show its scope and object , —or , the propositions which he will read his two

      undertakes to prove ; and whoever volumes of upwards of 600 pages each , pregnant with facts , authorities , and reflections , will be satisfied that the author has completely made out his case . Want of space prevents me from doing more than referring in this general way to the contents of the work ; which I hope will find a place in every circulating library and book-club in the country . * Let us now see what Mr . William Chambers ' s counter views

      amount to . Mr . Chambers states : — ' * Let all antiquated restrictions on the transfer and breaking up of large territorial possessions be by all means removed ; but further than this , leave things to t he course of natural events . " Taken by itself , this passage would lead to the belief , that the writer was an enemy to entails and primogeniture , was favourable to a system of cheap deeds and a registration of them—so that the less wealthy classes may become acquirers of the soil , — in a word , that Mr . Chambers was at one with Mr . Kay on these points : but no such thing was meant by the words quoted , as appears from other parts of the article which I shall notice : —

      " Unfortunately , " ( says Mr . C . ) " we cannot have the satisfaction of joining Mr . Kay in his projects of amelioration . He seerns to be the studied advocate of a crotchet . His crotchet is , that our social evils spring from certain legal arrangements . Property in land is centering in a few hands ; the law supports the principle through the agency of entaih , primogeniture , and other arrangements . " Now , this crotchet , as it is termed , is not only supported by a vast mass of well-attested facts , but by the coinciding testimony of a host of eminent writers both foreign and native ; such as Sismondi , Tracy , Say , Passey , Chevalier , Dupin , Quetclct , Stein , Hardenberg , Raiimcr , Mill , Thornton , Laing , Howitt , &c . __ _

      It is the more surprising that Mr . W . Chambers should thus be opposed to a free trade in land as the means of enabling the working classes to participate in and acquire the most valuable part of a nation's wealth , seeing that he was found among the public advocates of a repeal of the corn-laws , and that the principle of a free trade in the produce of the soil is equally applicable to the soil itself . Indeed , the emancipation of the land from its feudal fetters is

      clearly of infinitely greater importance , not only socially but politically considered , than the free importation of corn or any other commodity . Mr . C . is likewise known as an enemy of the gamelaws , and professes to wish their repeal . But these laws are the direct and natural emancipations of the great concentration of landcl i > roporty in Britain , and would soon disappear under a wider distribution of it . Game preserving and small properties are two incompatible things . called the

      At a time when what is voluntary question was keenly debated in Scotland , Mr , W . Chambers was thfi publicly declared enemy of Church establishments , maintaining that all sects oupht to support their own clergy without aid from tho State . This most desirable reform can , however , only be attained by abolishing the privileges of property , entails , and primogeniture , and bo diminishing tho influence of the landed aristocracy , -who at present require tho seven or eight millions derived from the English and Irish establishment for providing for the disinherited branches of thoir families and their dependants . Until these privileges of property pro annihilated a similar obstacle will exist to achieving

      what is called Financial Reform , by the agency of that Association of which . Mr . C . is , I believe , a member . „ . _ , In disparagement of the " small proprietors of con * tinental Europe , * ' Mr . C . states , on what he call * " good authority , " that these petty landowners in France are buried in debt . But let him consult Mr . Thornton ' s work , A Plea for Peasant Proprietors , and he will see that the amount of these debts nas been enormously overstated by him . He also overlooks the fact that the great proprietors in our own country are the most indebted body in Europe , as is shown by the sales now going on in Ireland under the Encumbered Estates Act ; while those of them who are protected by entails are constantly defrauding their creditors to a prodigious extent .

      At a loss for objections of a material nature to Mr . Kay's system , Mr . C . flies to political ones ( not a little out of place in a journal like his ) , and

      observes : — " The truth is , that the system of small proprietorship on the Continent has in two generations made it an impossibility to furnish the materials of an intelligent constitutional government . In France and Germany ^ the choice lies only between anarchy and military despotism ; and beyond this choice the system of universal peasant proprietary appears to have set an impassable barrier . " If Mr . Chambers had , however , read the earlier chapters of Mr . Kay ' s work , he would have seen this political objection which has been so often thrown forward by the Tory press , fully met and successfully refuted ; and I only regret that the relative passages are too long to be quoted here . The causes to which Mr . Chambers traces the

      present deplorable state of our working classes are , improvidence , and the want of a sound system of education ; and he adds , — " Only one shred of excuse can be offered in extenuation of the improvidence which the most careful are the readiest to deplore ; it is the sin of ignorance , and as such is primarily imputable to a want of education , not meaning by that abused word the acts merely of reading and writing :, but a thorough training in moral habits , and

      receiving intellectual strength ; and we would add , if need be , by compulsion , should nothing else be available . If society is in any respect to blame , herein lies the head and front of its offending . Occupied too exclusively in material pursuits , it incautiously neglects the institution of such enginery of universal education as would prevent , in a great measure , the growth of that lamentable ignorance which weighs down the resources of the nation , and maintains the gloom of savagery amidst the brightest gleams of civilization . "

      In this passage the whole question in dispute virtually lies . That the complete system of education so much desiderated for the working classes does not exist in Britain , with its vast masses of landed property and its preponderating or rather all-powerful aristocracy , is a fact admitted and deplored by Mr . Chambers . That it is nevertheless to be found in operation in other countries where land is greatly subdivided , and is a necessary concomitant and effect of that subdivision , is shown at groat length , and most convincingly , by Mr . Kay in the cases of Switzerland , Norway , * Prussia , Saxony , Holland , France , Belgium , and the United States of America . Thus , then , is the problem in dispute solved and settled against Mr . Chambers upon his own grounds or

      showing . That an editor of Chambers ' s Journal , so expressly devoted to the cause of the people , should have put forward the views referred to , is a phenomenon or anomaly of a somewhat startling nature , but one that may be accounted for by the peculiar state of the society in the town where he resides . Be it known , therefore , that Edinburgh is one of the most aristocratic towns in the kingdom , and that its whole society—be it Whig , Tory , or Radical—is saturated and poisoned with the spirit of aristocracy . The Whig Edinburgh Rcvieto , and the Tory magazine laws of entail

      of Blac / ctvood , have alike defended the and primogeniture ; and Chambers's Journal t by allying its forces to these veteran champions of feudal institutions , makes up the anti-progressive triumvirate . Of tho Liberal newspapers published in Edinburgh I could name more than one editor who , in private conversation , will frankly admit the baneful nature of these laws , and his desire to see them repealed ; but to proclaim these sentiments in print is beyond the courage of persons who fear injury to their pecuniary interests , and dread being excluded from tho genteel circles of the place , the only exceptho Church

      tions being thu organs of Free party , several of whose elurgy , siuih as Dr . Buchanan and . Dr . JJegg , have , much , to their honour , boldly stood forward for the emancipation of the soil from the feudal fetters that yet attnch to it . By this party a society was lately formed in Edinburgh for ameliorating the condition of the masses ; and its loading object , as expressed in its programme , is to effect thu abolition of entails and primogeniture . Thw society will soo , with equal surprise as regret , that tho infant association will not have as coadjutors , but as strenuous opponents , thu editors oi Chambers's Journal In concluding this rather long letter on a subject which I have long looked upon as of tho very highest importance , and hitherto too much overlooked by reformers , I may observe that there is . no public

      Untitled Article

      * It lias already received ample notice in our columns—Vhlo , Nos . 19 , 21 , and 23 , —JiD .

      Untitled Article

      Oct . 12 , i 860 . ] ^ tft ^ LCatfCV . 687

  • Citation
    • Leader (1850-1860), Oct. 12, 1850, page 687, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1856/page/15/