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Leader (1850-1860), 21st June 1851, Edition Town of 2, Page 585, Untitled Article

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      Untitled Article

      synod , his choice must lie between submission , which he d oes not seem at all inclined to yield , and vigorous agitation through his friends and the press , to vindicate his character in the eyes of the world , and thus to elicit , perhaps in a substantial form , the expression of its sympathy , never withheld from an innocent and injured man , which , in the absence of all evidence to the contrary , ftlr . Harvey , has unquestionably shown himself to be . * *

      Untitled Article

      THE CANTERBURY ASSOCIATION AND THE LIBERTY OP THE PRESS . We have this week had the pleasure of seeing the first numb er of our youngest contemporary , the Lyttelton Times . It is a credit in every respect to all parties concerned ; it is remarkable also as affording a reply to those who contend that a newspaper will be good for nothing unless subjected to the pressure of taxation . The Lyttelton T imes addresses itself to men accustomed to first-class London papers ; and though its quantity is small , its quality will bear comparison with the best papers in the mother country . Its price , 6 d ., is probably owing to the necessarily small number of purchasers in a colony which numbers only 1100 inhabitants . But the most interesting fact connected with the paper is its reprint in London without a stamp . Most of our southern colonies have London organs ; but these are edited here , and submit to the demands of the Stampoffice . The Lyttelton Times has been reprinted entire , without complying with the provision of the newspaper act , which requires a stamp on all newspapers printed in Great Britain , to be made public . We hope the publisher will defy the office , and appeal to a jury for support ; so much difficulty is felt in defining news , that we think a good case might be made out . The judges have

      been so much puzzled by the apparently simpler case of the Household Narrative , that we venture to hope that a series of trials on the newspaper act would have the effect of demonstrating its utter impracticability . The Lyttelton Times has already declared war against the un-English form of government now prevailing in New Zealand ; if they will wage war with the censorship of the press here , they will earn a just claim to the help of the people in their future demand for a representative government . Till the English press is free , it is impossible that the people of England should rightly estimate the value of a good understanding with our colonies .

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      CALIFORNIA IN DEBT . You do not credit it—certainly not—but somebody has credited the State of California , now an infant of fifteen months old , to the tune of nearly a million of dollars . Shortly we shall read of " Californian State Stock " on 'Change . It is really a very curious phoanomenon in this nineteenth century that the Land of Gold should have so felicitously managed its affairs as to stand in need of the money-lender . Looking round the world , and very fixedly at this latest birth , a naive philosopher might not unnaturally speculate himself into a belief that Debt is the first condition of National existence .

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      SOCIAL REFORM . I . "DIFFICULTIES . " TO JOHN OKAY , OF BAHltOWrOlU ) . June 16 , 1851 . My peak John Gray , —The difficulty of effecting a roHcue from the present state of the working elnsses , appears to mo to be precisely the reverse of that which has generally been recognized . I d « not think that we need to convince the educated or wealth y classes how bad , how very bad—how comfortless , immorul , and degraded—is the condition of the largest numbers in all parts of the country ; but it is rather the poor themselves whom we have to convince on that point . Horn to their actual co ndition , they very generally imagine thiit < such is life . " They see the rich rolling by in carriages ; they know that the middle classes have commodious houses and ugrecable diet ; they know that employers dic tate the amount of wages ; they find that they th emselves live in unhealthy ports of towns , work too long for health or comfort ; cannot escape from streets or hi ghway * to untune Lhouinelves on Sundays ; on

      their rare opportunities of pleasure are sent to the worst places , —the tap of the public-house , the gallery of the theatre ; but such is life as they have always known it , and how can they help it ? It does not come within their experience to know that once upon a time their countrymen were better off . I will repeat here a passage that I have already quoted from Thornton ' s Plea for Peasant Proprietors : he is speaking of the times of the Tudors , when " there were few rustics who were not either owners or tenants not merely of a rood , but of several acres" : — " Fortescue , Lord Chief Justice to Henry VI ., dilates with contagious exultation on the plenty enjoyed by the lowest class of his countrymen . ' They drink no water , '

      he says , ' unless it be so that some for devotion , and upon a zeal of penance , do abstain from other drink ; they eat plentifully of all kinds of flesh and fish . They wear fine woollen cloth in all their apparel : they have also abundance of bed coverings in their houses , and of all other woollen stuff . They have great store of all hustlements and implements of household . They are plentifully fnrnished with all instruments of husbandry , and all other things that are requisite to the accomplishment of a quiet and wealthy life , according to their estates and degrees . ' ( Fortescue , DeLaud . Leg . Anglise , pp . 85 , 86 . ) Fortescue was an avowed panegyrist , and his statements might require considerable abatement if they stood alone ; but their perfect accuracy is placed beyond dispute by

      the most unimaginative and matter-of-fact of all compilations , The Statutes at Large . Repeated enactments passed during the period we are examining , use language quite as strong , and still more precise and circumstantial than that of the patriotic Chief Justice . In addition to laws designed to keep down the wages of agricultural labour , others were directed against the luxury of the peasantry . In 1363 [ 37 Edw . 3 , c . 14 ] carters , ploughmen , and all other farm servants , were enjoined not to eat or drink ' excessively , ' or to wear any cloth except 1 blanket and . russet wool of twelve pence . ' Domestic servants were at the same time declared to be entitled to only one meal a day of flesh or fish , and were to content themselves at other meals with ' milk , butter , cheese ,

      and other such viands . ' In 1463 [ 3 Edw . 4 , c . 5 ] servants in husbandry were restricted to clothing of materials not worth more than two shillings a yard , and were forbidden to wear hose of a higher price than fourteenpence a pair , or girdles garnished with silver . The price of their wives' coverchiefor head-dress was not to exceed twelvepence . In 14 S 2 [ 22 Edw . 4 , c . 1 ] these restrictions were loosened , and labourers in husbandry were permitted to wear hose as dear as eighteenpence a pair , while the sum which their wives might legally expend on covering for the head , was raised to twentypence . This legislation

      considering the fall which has since taken place in the value of money , was really much as if a law should now be necessary to prevent ploughmen from strutting about in velvet coats , and silk stockings , with silver buckles in their shoes , and their wives from trimming their caps with Brussels lace . It exhibits agricultural labourers in a condition which was probably never attained by the same class in any other age or country , unless , perhaps , by the emancipated negroes of the British West Indies . Yet the description applies only to the lower order of peasants—to those who worked for hire , and had either no land or none but what was allowed them in part

      payment of wages . What , then , must have been the prosperity of the small freeholeers and cottage farmers ?" The readers of the Morning Chronicle , of various Blue Books and reports , know well enough how contrasted is this condition of the labouring classes in the times of the Tudors , with that of the same class in our own day ; and of course the labouring-man himself knows that his condition is not like that which we have just been reading about . The Commissioner of the Morning Chronicle describes a cottager , in Devonshire I think , who lives upon cabbage and weak tea and such wretched diet : now , that cottager knew what he and his family ate and drank before he told the writing traveller for the Morning Chronicle ; but the miserable man of course did not know the relation which his state bore to that of the labouring-man

      in the time of the Tudors , or of the labouring-man in anyone of our own colonies at the present day , or in some countries which we look down upon as inferior to our own—in Tuscany , for cxumple . The agricultural labourer of Suffolk is glad to get into the workhouse . The hand-loom weaver of Bolton toils at his loom all day long for four or five shillings a week . In the great factory towns the human animal finds himself slave to a gigantic mechanical system in which his will has no share , and he is forced to

      accept it as it stands . Now , with all these classes our difficulty I conceive is , to convince them that their condition is not an inevitable one ; that it is not a natural condition ; that it is not a decree of fate ; but that it i . s a thoroughly artificial state , brought about by causes which cun at once bo altered . If the working-classes of this country could perceive this truth , 1 am sure we should not find them tolerate their miserable condition for a day longer ; and then we Hhould have fhe only thing necessary for a change —the will to make it .

      I know there will be two replies to this statement . One will be , that the condition of the workingclasses has improved . Economists will throw at our heads no end of statistics , to show that " the rate of mortality" in diminished ; that the prico of broadcloth and cotton gowns is abated ; or that white bread is more generally consumed . Now . nil this is sheer nonsense . Because the doctor Haven many who

      died at rougher times , because labouring-women , wear cotton or even silk gowns , and white bread has superseded brown or black bread , it does ndt at all follow that the work people of our day eat and drink so heartily , have leisure for amusement , can rest so much hope in the chances of the future , or in any way live such happy , hearty lives . " It is true , " says Thornton , " that , in the midst of this abundance , the English peasantry of the middle ages ate off wooden platters , never knew the luxury of a cotton shirt or a cup of tea , and slept on straw pallets within walls of wattled plaster , and that in some counties they used barley instead of wheaten bread . But it is absurd to imagine that , because they had to put up with these inconveniences , their situation , in more important respects , was not immeasurably superior to that of their living descendants . "

      The other reply is , that in the time of the Tudora , England was in a condition more like that of a " new" country , and that our present condition is the result of over-crowding . This , also , is nonsense . I do not say it is wicked , because I do not believe in the wickedness of human nature . It is a delusion which much weakens the efforts on behalf of the People , to suppose that they are viewed with malevolence by other classes ; that delusion in the mind of- a working man is precisely the same as the delusion which makes a middle-class man afraid of universal suffrage . The staple of man is just the same , or woman either , in any class ; and upon the

      whole , in any class , the better motives are the stronger . That which others mig ht call wickedness is ignorance or carelessness . There is a laziness of mind which besets most of us , and which makes us rather suffer any evil that is very complicated than take the trouble of setting it right . It is very easy to get subsistence out of the soil of a new country , and therefore , it is done as a matter of course ; it is more difficult in an old and crowded country , and as it is so , we would rather presume that it must be so . There is the mistake . Civilization has brought an enormous increase to the luxury and convenience of the wealthiest classes ; it has brought a not lesa

      increase to the comfort and certainty of life for the middle class ; but with that advancement , which we most absurdly call " the progress of the nation , " we must notice a positive decline in the condition of the real mass of the people . Hitherto , however , while the interests of the upper classes have been studied in every ' possible direction , while the middle classes have established their claim to a share of government and of oeconomical attention , while the claims of property and trade have been laboriously and learnedly studied by our legislators , there has been no corresponding attention or diligence onbehalfoflabouringindustry . It was too large , ceconomists helplessly assumed , to be regulated : interference was to be only negative and repressive ; civilization , which has done so much for property , for trade , for

      learning , art , and science , could do nothing for industry , except incidentally , and as it were by chance . Such was the presumption , and under that foolish and cruel presumption , it has happened that civilization , or the progress of a country , is construed to be the progress of a ve ry small minority , leaving the great mass of the People poor , helpless , and miserable . That presumption , too , has been taught to the People , and they have accepted it ! They have been content to forego their share in the progress of civilization . In order that limited classes might be richer , more learned , more cultivated , more luxuiious , the great mass of the People have been content to toil more , eat less , sleep less , enjoy less , and even to presume that because it is so , it must be so . It is but recently that they have

      thought of asking whether that presumption is true . It is not true . They mig ht at least share the benefits monopolized by classes ; but the same process which has made civilization powerful for tho 66 classes , might make it so for them as well—namely , the direct endeavour to consult their interests in our political and social arrangements . That endeavour would not be long delayed if once the People demanded it . That the People do not unite in su ch a demand is brought about by two causes , and one is their not perceiving tile merely artificial nature of their condition ; the other cause I will discuss in my next letter . Hut to conquer that first cause , the policy of Social lteformers should bo to hold up to the depressed classes a more vivid

      picture of the better state which they mig ht attain for themselves—the better living , the better food , the shorter toil , the more enjoyment which , they might have as the reward of united action . There is not a man nor a woman in this country that might not be well fed , well lodged , well clothed , with abundance of all the enjoyments created by civilization ; and they might have that better life if they could only be made to know the possibility . The first work for us to do , therefore , is to make thorn know it . And I address myself to you ; net-mine , differing as we have done , we have also agreed ; find I have iound no man more hearty in the endeavour to bring our fellowcountrymen to a common understanding . Ever yours most sincerely , Thornton Hunt .

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      Juke 21 , 1851 . ] ffif > £ % t * X * tt . 585

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      PRUSSIAN POSTAGE . Prussia begins to fear English papers . Liglit from the West would be fatal to Manteuffel and Frederick ; but openly to prohibit English journals would be too much of a good thing . So they simply imitate the landlord who has an unpleasant tenant : he raises the rent , and they raise the postage . The postage for newspapers has been increased six fold—from three pence , for example , to eighteen pence ; and thus the papers are prohibited , seeing that few will take them in at that price ; and yet scandal is avoided .

  • Citation
    • Leader (1850-1860), June 21, 1851, page 585, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1888/page/13/