On this page

• Text (4)

  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.

  • 

    August 21,1852. THE STAR OF FREEDOM. 25

  • 

    THE NECESSITY OF PROGRESS. After all the...

  • 

    THE AGE OF SHAM. We arc told that Humani...

  • 

    THE ELEMENTS OF ASSOCIATION. We do not a...

• 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.

    Saturday, August 21, 1852. Fratricidal W...

    ; oncond time raises its insane and immoral song of triumph at 3 tie threatened war , and exults in the possibility of the French tnymy passing next winter in London ! We do not believe at lat the Nation speaks the thought of the mass of the Irish : opeople—most certainly not of the real democracy of Ireland

    tieiiey hate the English Government for they have suffered by atiat government , and have not wc also ? but they cannot hate lc he English people , who seek freedom for England and for elreland too . If we thought otherwise , we would say to them ; vs we say to the Nation , and to those whose opinion it expresses : That People who can desire the destruction of the nationality of another is ITSELF UNFOVOBTHY TO BECOME A NATION .

    August 21,1852. The Star Of Freedom. 25

    August 21 , 1852 . THE STAR OF FREEDOM . 25

    The Necessity Of Progress. After All The...

    THE NECESSITY OF PROGRESS . After all the hindrances , defeats , and dangers which have > ebeen inflicted upon the advocates of R / . 'Vm , few would icadhere to the cause of the people , were it r . > t that they have nan instinctive faith in the certainty of n'Hnaate Progress . P Perhaps they may sometimes be unable to reason to the ci conclusion ; possibly it may often he a blind presentiment ; b but whatever form it assumes , whatever name it may pror . perly be called by , there it is rooted in the breasts of thou-£ sands . All beliefs tend to their own realization when that is

    ] possible , and so will this one . No cause ev : i * yet failed when 1 those who upheld it were animated by this spirit . Such a ; faith gives vitality to opinion , and renders it indestructible . Only imbue a man or a party of men with a thorough conviction that ultimately their end will he attained , and they will never cease to strive . Beaten back here , discomfited there , overthrown at another point , they will rally and advance again .

    Look at every recognized party in the state and say which of them has that faith in itself , and its principles whicli is the very essence of political existence ? They are all like ships driving in a strange channel , unable to arrest their progress , and ignorant of the existence of a harbour of refuge . One by one they let go their anchors , —anchors of sanitary reform , of law reform , of poor law reform , of rating reform , of small

    suffrage reform ; hut ever surely , the current that sets steadily in one direction drifts them on they know not where . Glance first at the position of the Tories , once not only the strongest party in the state , hut more than a moiety of the whole legislative power . When they were in the heyday of strength they dared not withhold Catholic Emancipation . A little later on , they had to suffer the Reform Bill , which gave power to the middle class , to he passed . At a subsequent period , the most politic and far-seeing man among them gave

    up that Com law which they looked upon as the key-stone of their territorial power , and delivered them , bound hand and foot , into the hands of their enemies . Now that they are resitated into a government , what is their chance ? what do they themselves feel it to he ? If they have a mission , it is that which their chief in the House of Lords has proclaimed to stop the progress of Democracy , but however ignorant of what Democracy is the Earl of Derby may he , then- leader of the lower House—a renegade radical , a plebeian by birth , and a writer of books which shew some knowledge of the people

    and their feelings , is better informed ; and it is said that even now the men who are to serve under his banner are distrustful of his guidance . But they must either follow him or give up the battle—either fight at the risk of being betrayed or fly ; for Disraeli once lost , or converted into an enemy , there is not another man capable of assuming the command . It is a

    sad strait for a party , which has ruled with absolute sway , to be dependent upon" a descendant of a race which they systematically exclude from a share in the Legislature ; but it is sadder for them to feel that the offspring of the despised Jew is , while saving them from present ruin , committing them to future destruction . The Tories feel that they are making

    their last effort , and that gives them the energy of despair . Just as a dying man , wrestling with the shadow which clings round him , " clutches at the ebbing remnant of life with the force of a giant , so dying Freedom rouses itself , and when its grasp of the present is at the tightest , the film comes thicker over its eyes , and what was once a living organization is passing to corruption .

    Of the Conservative Peelites it is almost needless to speak , for they can scarcely he called a party . If Sir Bobert Peel had lived , they might have grown into one , hut his death throes were theirs also . They are simply grubs which , aspiring to become butterflies , have begun , but been unable to complete the change . We have seen somewhere the picture of a wretch suspended by a cracking branch , over a precipice , unable to obtain a footing , and afraid to take the plunge .

    That is the position of the Conservative party , which , unless as a make-weight , will count for nothing in future legislation . mat of the Whigs ? Have they any greater faith than the others in their creed , and the possibility of maintaining it i

    We think not . Men without a settled faith gain or lose confidence in the future , in accordance with their experience of the past ; and the Whig history of the last twenty years , although it may look bright upon the surface , is , in truth , little hetter than a history , of reverses . The Whigs passed the Keform Bill . Their leader declared that to be a final

    The Necessity Of Progress. After All The...

    measure . r Ihat was to be the crowning triumph of the liberties of the people . So said Lord John Busscll . Twenty years pass , and the finality is a dream . That bill was to coining Reform like the preface to the book , or the prologue to the play , or the introduction to the overture . It was but the key note of the growing chorus . But the Whigs meant it to be final . Yet now they babble about another settlement which is to be more final , and yet short of complete .

    Passing from the Reform Bill and its sequel , most men remember what happened with regard to the Corn Laws . The Whigs , by the mouth of Lord Melbourne , declared that he who thought of Free Trade in corn was little better than a madman . A few short years , and we find them willing to give up the sliding scale for a fixed duty , and shortly afterwards endeavouring to outstrip Sir Robert Peel , by joining the cry for the abolition of all duty . Since then , review their

    conduct during their last term of office , and it illustrates incapability striving hard to effect a compromise between the possible and the proper , and failing in all its attempts . Failing to make budgets , failing to govern colonies , failing even in that lowest art of government—tlie making of parliamentary majorities . What faith or hope can a faction have which has eschewed right , and been baffled in tho attempt to be expedient .

    The Manchester School ! The hard-headed political economists . The alchemists of modern times , occupied in transmuting everything into gold . The men who would fain persuade the world that the curse of Midas was a blessing . Who would restrict Suffrage to property , the difference between them and others being the amount of the property . Who would put a qualification at £ 5 instead oi

    £ 10 . Wo have not space now to do justice to this class ; suffice it for the present to say that they are not yet a party capable of governing the state . They have neither traditions , organizations , nor a faith worth having . Yet they are more formidable than all parties , because they have a defined purpose , business habits , energy and talent , aud because they have equal will with Lord Derby to resist the true idea of democracy .

    But above all , is the necessity of continual motion till the end . A law as imperative as that which whirls systems around the sun , and causes the tides to ebb and flow , rules all parties . This makes progress inevitable . This docs not depend on this man or that , or on this party or that . It takes no heed of the weakness of expedients , or the imbecility of compromises . Like time , destined to crumble alike the

    masslvencss of St . Paul ' s , and tho delicate tracery of Westminster Abbey , it confounds the less liberalism of Disraeli , and the more of Cobden , in a common destruction . It makes final reforms temporary , and will make their successors as transitory . It is this necessity which politicians spend their lives in trying to escape—which merges all tho politics of faction , in the great demands of the entire people . That it is which will not suffer the State machine to work without continual

    enlargement—which is always saying -there is a wheel wanting here or a cog there , and which makes the supply of every recognized defect the reason for perceiving a new and yet more serious deficiency . This is the law constantly operating , in which the advocates of democracy have faith , and which their adversaries believe in too , but as the devils were said to believe—with trembling .

    Yes , progress onward is a necessity inscribed upon the past , and heralded by the present—working itself out through tho opposition of Derbys , the expediences of Russclls , and the calculations of Cobdens . There is no question as to its certainty , but only as to its mode and time of action , and the decision of the problem rests no longer with the high few , but with the humble many .

    Reformers , it is now worth while to-be thinking agents , instead of blind instruments . Is it good to slide into change through suffering , or make it by effort ? If you think as we do—if yon believe as those who have hope and faith in good —if you would make the birth of the inevitable easy and painless , rouse yourselves from your apathy , and help us to make a real People ' s Party .

    The Age Of Sham. We Arc Told That Humani...

    THE AGE OF SHAM . We arc told that Humanity has passed through a Golden Age , and an age of Iron . Doubtless , wc arc now in the age of Brass . It is as near as we can calculate about the meridian of the Day of Pentecost in the world of Flunkeydom , and the Millenium of Sham ! Humbug rides royally omnipotent , anion 0- its myriad worshippers , who sing its praises continually . We smile scornfully when we read of the mean artifices of the poet Pope , to keep his name in the mouth of the public , and how he worked the oracle of contemporary fame .

    We are disgusted when told of the trickery of that king who was wont to delight his courtly audience with his exquisite performance on the cremona , having some skilled performer behind the scenes ioplay all the hard passages , and elicit the cheers . Both these " illustrious examples" fail to adequately illustrate the present state of things . Society has faith in nothing but Sham ; no faith in Humanity , no love for earnestness no reverence for Heroism . It matters nothing whether vou are truthful and honest , you have but to seem so , whicli is tolerably easy . Nearly every man carries on a kind of Afri-

    The Age Of Sham. We Arc Told That Humani...

    can trade in glass-beads and pinch-beck ; the only apprenticeship necessary to the business being in learning how to electro-biologize his neighbours into the belief that the fabricated wares are genuine gems , and real gold . There is hardly any thing real amongst us , it is all hypocritical seeming and miserable imposture . The present position of society is as great a sham as the contortions of that cripple by the wayside , who earns his livelihood by the exhibition of

    mockagony , and as with him , constant practise has rendered the deception perfect . Simulation has usurped the place of being . Tinsel and lacquer , are made to look as rich and real as gold . Devil ' s-dust and shoddy , are made to eclipse fine wool f and rogues and charlatans , put on a polish whose lustre outshines all honesty , plain truth , and simple merit . Perhaps one of the most powerful instruments of humbug is the press , and one of the complctest shams is advertising . You read the

    record of a book , which contains an eloquent tribute to the author ' s Miltonic or Homeric genius , and which tribute seems to have burst spontaneously and irresistably from the writer ' s heart—nothing of the kind ; the miter is the most intimate friend of the author , and the vigour of that puff was derived from a pull at his claret . We should say that the press is the great mint for smashing , and strikes off more counterfeit coin than all the monetary smashers put together . It will puff , paragraph , and laud a man into everything , no matter

    what he may be , so long as he possesses the money and the wit to advertise ! As Mr . Coppock , the electioneering agent will take down tho electoral map of England , and laying his finger on every given borough or shire , ensure it to his client , on the payment of a certain sum , so will the charlatans of the press take the map of Fame , and apportion out the desired high-place of immortality to any aspirant for a given fee . Books are reviewed into the twelfth edition . The public is bamboozled into the belief that the most illustrious obscures

    are luminous stars in the literary heavens . As a sample of the meaner quackery , though not the lesser sham , we will take the case of Du Barky and Co ., the noble and humane philanthropists , who have been all the way to Africa to cultivate what they term " Revalenta Arabica , " and all for the good of the public , of course ! They send us their advertisement containing some thousand cases of cure of all kinds of

    diseases , known and unknown , which wc ( for a given sum ) arc expected to palm upon our readers ; in addition to which , they demand insertion for paragraphs of their own concoction , which arc to come as from us ( the editors of this paper ); and thus we arc expected to deceive the public . Wc decline your offer , gentlemen , once aud for all , we set our faces against such an abominable svsteni of cajolcrv and fraud . More

    secrets of the prison-house" wc can and will reveal at some future time . Meanwhile , who would not welcome the besom of revolution to sweep the world ' s threshing floor , once again , for a chance of winnowing the chaff from the grain , and developing some real earnest life ? Wc could rejoice in any change that would tend * to tear down this hateful , grinning mask of sham , and reveal to us the face of humanity in its simple truthfulness , and natural beauty .

    The Elements Of Association. We Do Not A...

    THE ELEMENTS OF ASSOCIATION . We do not attempt to conceal the fact that the spread of Co-operation and its organization into a system , must he a work of time and effort . Great changes arc not to he effected but by slow and gradual steps—steps often to be taken in the midst of suffering , The path of reform is neither a railroad nor a bed of flowers . It may be the one when we have levelled the inequalities of class , filled up the hollows of despondencyand

    tun-, nelled through the hills of prejudice ; it may be the other when we have sown broadcast the seeds of good . Now it is a toilsome , painful journey along the wellworn life-track of the world . Sanguine , hopeful men , misled by small signs , fancy the Millenium is near at , hand , just as the desert-traveller scents upon the hot ; wind the perfume wafted , from the distant oasis , and I

    dreams that his journey is at an end . They dream i that it is but a leap onward to the promised goal . They r let the wish be father to the thought . Sympathizing r , with them in their hope , we cannot share in their r anticipations . We see plainly enough before us a longg period of struggle and difficulty . We glance over a a wide array of errors to be set right , and obstacles to be > e overcome . We recognize the truth that in natient . t . overcome , vve recognize tne truth that m patientt

    , , earnest , perhaps painful labour , lies our onl y hope ofof triumph . It is no light undertaking to change a a system which is the growth of ages , and has become thehe habit of the world . It is no easy task to persuade thosese who have been educated to place their chief happinesass in individual aggrandizement , that their welfare is is bound up with the well-being of the whole communityty , It is no child ' s play to take hold of a fabric of socie ty ^ of which we are part , and in which we have grown , andnd attempt to substitute for it another . It is not lessess

    difficult to give mutual confidence to those who muslust work together , if they would work at all for good . It ist hi hard to stamp upon the minds of men who see arounanc : them colossal operations and immense wealth the unimportance of little things , and the efficiency of smahal . beginnings , and perhaps hardest of all in an age 0 01 matter of fact , expediency , and political econom-yaryi

• Citation
  • Northern Star (1837-1852), Aug. 21, 1852, page 9, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/ns/issues/ns2_21081852/page/9/