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950 &t)C ILcabtr. [Saturday ,
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(tontmatiatts nf the 1Mb,
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POLITICAL AND SOCIAL.
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NATIONAL CHARTER ASSOCIATION. At the usu...
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IIkdkmi'tion Society.—Upwards of a thous...
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(fltyw Cmmril
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^ — [In this department, as all opinions...
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There is no learned man but will confess...
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TO GUISEPPE MAZZINI. London, September 2...
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.
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Transcript
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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.
950 &T)C Ilcabtr. [Saturday ,
950 & t ) C ILcabtr . [ Saturday ,
(Tontmatiatts Nf The 1mb,
( tontmatiatts nf the 1 Mb ,
Political And Social.
POLITICAL AND SOCIAL .
National Charter Association. At The Usu...
NATIONAL CHARTER ASSOCIATION . At the usual weekly meeting of the Executive on " Wednesday , a vote of thanks was passed to Mr . Reynolds , and the vacancy caused by his resignation ordered to be filled up . On the financial report being brought up by the Secretary , Mr . Arnott and Mr . Hunt were requested to draw up a statement of the financial position of the Association . Accordingly , they drew up the following address " To the Chartists " : — " Brother Democrats , —We feel assured there never
was a time when it was more important than the present for the Chartist machinery to be kept in working order ; because , as a means of Propagandism , its ramifications are unparalleled ; because , also , on looking at the serious aspect of affairs at home and abroad , we see that great events are looming in the distance , and that this strong engine can be so worked as to be of incalculable benefit to the Democratic cause . For it to be now broken up and dissevered would be a disaster . We feel confident that all true friends to progression would deplore such an untoward event .
" We are aware that the so-called ' World ' s Fair , ' with many other circumstances , have diverted your attention for the last five or six months from political subjects , and , consequently , the funds which have flowed into the Chartist Exchequer have been of that limited description , that we feel it to be our imperative duty to lay before you , as explicitly as possible , our present financial position . " In addition to the above balance due to the Treasurer of £ 11 6 s . lfd ., there is due for rent of office , £ 13 4 s ., and for printing , £ 9 10 s . 6 d ., making a total of £ 34 0 s . 7 | d . This debt is yours ; and we candidly ask you , as men who value justice , to pay it . What we require is two thousand sixpences ;
and surely there can be that number found who will , with pleasure , subscribe this small sum , in order to save the organization from becoming a wreck . We have very briefly and plainly stated the case , and call on all , who love liberty , to exert their utmost energies to raise this amount within one month . If it cannot be so raised within that period , we must conclude you are content to let the machinery fall , and that the attempt to elevate you by your own organization is useless . On your response the movement depends . " You cannot fail to feel the full extent of that
responsibility . Chartism was never in a more wealthful condition . After all the dissensions and doubts that have hindered us , your organization is continually recruiting itself . Most of you know this . But the recovered action has not yet fully developed itself ; you have not yet provided for the increased activit } ' of your central machinery ; and you are increasing the neglect of letting that fall through before your renewed strength is brought into action . You will appreciate this frank appeal , and we doubt not respond to it at once . " Signed , on behalf of the Committee , " John Aknott , General Secretary . "
The Secretary will , of course , be happy to receive subscriptions at the office . A detailed balance-sheet will be published next week .
Iikdkmi'tion Society.—Upwards Of A Thous...
IIkdkmi'tion Society . —Upwards of a thousand persons attended the camp meeting on Woodhouse Moor , Hat Sunday , including a considerable number of the distributive class . In addition to the speakers mentioned in our last report , Dr . Lees was present , and gave an excellent address on the necessity of cooperation , as the means of benefiting all classes . Ilia amply illustrated discourse was listened to with deep attention . On Wednesday evening , September 24 , a meeting of the members was hold at Hall's Temperance Hotel , to consider the rules which have been prepared by a committee for the management of a cooperative store in connection with the society . There was a good attendance . Mr . 1 ) . Green , on taking the chair , made some remarks on the
great objects of the society , and went on to show that the establishment of a store would not only aid those objects , but also give an immediate benefit to the members , by enabling them to purchase unadulterated provisions at a less cost than they could otherwise do . lie then called upon Mr . Henderson to read the rules , and urged the members to consider them well before they adopted or rejected them . Mr Henderson considered it best , before reading the rules , to make some remarks upon the desirability of having a cooperative store in Leeds , and pointed out the anises of failure in cooperative movements : such as dishonesty , not . having a proper person
to buy for the store , attempting too much at . first , want of confidence , < Vr . c . ; ami showed that , the committee had provided against nil these evils , as far as possible ; showing , also , that the establishment of the " Central Cooperative Agency , " in London , guve to provincial stores a greater certainty of success than had ever previously existed . lie concluded by luoving— " That it is desirable to have u cooperative Htor < : in connection with the Redemption . Society . " This having been seconded by Mr . Jt . Jones , was carried unanimously . Mr . II . then prccecded to read Hie rules ; after some discussion , the first four were adopted , and the meeting adjourned till
next Wednesday evening , for the consideration oi the rest A hearty cooperative spirit pervaded the meeting . Moneys received for the week : —Leeds , U ) a . lid . ; Stiuiningley , per J . Wilson , ft * , ( id . ; Long ton , per Mr Kiley , In 4 il . ; llanley , per Mr . Wilbralmm , ( is . ( id .- Uuildnig l- ' und : L .-edH , fin . ( id . ; Longton , « ' !
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^ — [In This Department, As All Opinions...
^ — [ In this department , as all opinions , however extreme , are allowed an expression , the editor njbcessaeily holds himself responsible for none . ]
There Is No Learned Man But Will Confess...
There is no learned man but will confess he hath much profited by reading controversies , his senses awakened , and his judgment sharpened . If , then , it be profitable for him to read , why should it not , at least , be tolerable for his adversary to write . —Milton .
To Guiseppe Mazzini. London, September 2...
TO GUISEPPE MAZZINI . London , September 29 , 1851 . Friend and Brother , —We start , then , togethe r from this well settled point : that it is only by hardfought strife that Italy may be called into existence : in other words that " physical strength " is a main necessity with us ; the question is merely where that material power lies , and by what moral agencies it may be brought into the field . It is not to a man who has written on his banner " God and the People , " that I need say that God is to be the soul , and the People the instrument of our veneration . All the difference between you and the Moderate party may be reduced to a mere definition of the word " People . " People , by right , we all are . Every Italian , prince , noble , or priest , every man who is willing is entitled to fight the battles of his country . He , therefore , shall best have deserved of it who shall enlist the greatest number of Italians in the Italian ranks . Nothing , it would seem , could better answer our purpose than the utmost simplification of the national question , and the indefinite adjournment of all extraneous subjects of discussion . Let every man in Italy pronounce either for or against Italy , and let every man who either by generous feelings , or by selfish interests , is prompted to join us in our warcry " God for Italy ! Down with the foreigner !" be welcomed as a brother .
Many and serious are your objections to this scheme . Yet , remember , it is not much more than three years ago , in January , 1848 , that with a countenance beaming with honest pride you stepped before the French Minister Guizot , and asserted , " that there was onl y one party in Italy , and that was the national party . ' What you then justly contended , I still stoutly maintain . An Italian ' s judgment may fail on all other subjects , but never on the great question of nationality . It has pleased God
to make our cause as simple and obvious as it la righteous and holy . Hence the arrant folly , the great crime of complicating it , of mixing it up with other matters . " Would you rather have Prench and Austrians to rule over Italy , or would you rather be your own masters ? " Such would be the test to which I would put every man throughout the country : the answer would nowhere be doubtful , except where unnatural animosities , the result of our blind partisanship , have either perverted the judgment , uxiiperuted the heart , or alarmed the self-interest .
I have said that I would accept as a patriot every man who delared himself Bueh , even if actuated by less noble motives ; and that , because God alone is the judge of men ' s motives , and there is not much to be gained by too strict an investigation of our neighbour ' s conscience . The Italians are but too fatally tainted with jealousy and suspidousness . They are but too fain to put the worst possible construction on other people's words and notions . Since the days of Ludovic the Moor , they have chiefly fallen through mistrust . With good reliance on themselves , let the good and true go steadily to work . Let them openly face tin ; open foe . The false enemy that fights by their side - if Mich there be—will be awed by their success , and will look in vain for an opportunity of defection or treason .
I repeat it : there are not many men in Italy hostile to the Italian cause ; there would he many , on the contrary , anxious to range themselves amongst its champions , if they were not too rudely and ignominiouMly Hpurucd from the ranks . It has been your fate , Maz / . ini , to utter wise and sacred words , and to have them madly and impiousl y interpreted . Your adversaries mark you out . as a first sower of schism and scandal among the lovers of Italy ; and it seems to me possible , however , to embrace your theories in their full extent , und yet be at peace with all those who , from honest conviction , wngo hucIi a rulhjous war against you . It i « now twenty years
since we first met , fresh exiles , on the French soil Availing yourself of the prestige that the beauty of your countenance and of your soul gave you amonesr our ardent youth , you then first threw out that word " Young Italy , " which , taken too literally , arrayed so great a number of our elderly brethren again st you . Yet , even then , it was against superannuated notions , orexplodedprinciples , notagainst men , youne or old , that Young Italy waged war . You surely never shut your door against an Italian merely on account of his being ' on the wrong side of forty . " All your other exceptions and exclusions are always conceived in the same liberal spirit ; they are never personal . You could surely take a nobleman , a king , a pope * to your bosom , could you only feel assured that he is an Italian .
But it is because long years of bitter experience and too fond a spirit of generalization , have rather hurried you to the conclusion that princes , priests and nobles , that , to a great extent , all notable persons ' are not , and cannot be , Italians , that you have ' thrown yourself upon the " People , " and have adopted the more bigoted definition of that word . " He who is not with me is against me , " is now your motto . Charles Albert might have been your beau ideal of a king in 1831 ; and you would have accepted him even in 1848 ( we have your letters to that effect ) , if you had thought it possible that he
meant well by Italy . And yet , with all his imperfections , hesitations , fears , tergiversations , that poor king was a well-meaning man , as it turns out ; and many of us may at the present moment envy his last day ' s agony and his lonely deathbed . Mazzini , these letters shall not contain one word of reproach ; but tell it , in God ' s name , were it in your power at this moment to retrace your steps , had you clearly perceived—what all the world too fatally doubted—how that poor king had staked his all on
the cast of a die , and was determined to live king of Italy or to die its martyr , do you not now think that you would have forgotten ^ all the past , you would have disregarded the very blood of Jacopo Ruffini that rose between you , and would have placed yourself by that poor king's side ; you would have breathed your own energy into his wavering mind , you would have struck into it a spark of that immortal fire of genius which burns in your soul for some great hidden purpose ; and Italy would then have only one will , Italy only one
party" Trojaque mine stares . " It was not so decreed ; but woe to him who learns nothing from that cruel experience ! See the moral It is then possible for you , as it is for all of us , to misjudge the intentions of our fellow mortals . There are then—there have been—there can yet be patriot kings : in the same manner you may perhaps find patriot nobles . Oh ! you Avill answer , Charles Albert , even in his supreme moments , was a patriot from ambition .
Princes and nobles can only be so from self-interest . Mazzini , that can be said of the lowest rabble likewise . It is not easy to decide who it is who has nothing to lose , all to gain , in a revolution . I have said—we must accept man with all his motives of action . Our policy does not consist in stripping men of their natural feelings , in extinguishing hope and fear in their bosoms . Our aim should rather be to clash as little as possible with their interests , and to make their wishes and aspirations subservient to a cause
which we deem sacred . You will call this political Jesuitism ; and it is easy to imitate Gideon's example—discard all but the three hundred chosen few , and trust to God's terror to defeat the Midianites ; but I think such conciliatory views consistent' with the strictest honesty . When I admit kings and nobles in the ranks of national combatants , I need not abandon my principles as a staunch Republican , if such they be , or renounce the hope of securing their future triump h . I merely invite all Italians to meet me on a field that is perfectly and essentially neutral . They miiy uC the
proved to have , they may be convinced that y have , as much interest in the emancipation ° f *' common country as any of us . If they must nceiM be blind to their own real good , if they must needs for the sake of a disgraceful vassalage , or oi sorno paltry privileges , truckle to a foreign despot , an " take the Held against us—why , then , let them ij " victims to their own unnatural perversity , a * * I" ? involved in the stranger ' s ruin ; but let us be carciu to the last ; , lest we should by ungenerous suspicions , by uncharitable prepossensions , force our n " ally into the enemy ' s < amp , and widen that iatal g I of division which makes all our weakncsH .
Mazzini , I have alreudy proved by your own w <> that , your policy admits of every phase ol just , rut" > compromise . Suppose , for a moment , that < - »< , Albert had been successful in 1848 , and « r i >™ 1 * 1 king either of the whole » f Italy or of its north rn division ; his victory resulting especially m > m support which , had you read his heart arig ht , JHuro you would not have withheld-1 usk you , « ^ it have been inconsistent with your most Mac principles to uequiesce in the state of things » ro "» r about by such auspicious vicissitudes , to lake y scut peucottbly in the oxtrcmo left of the purlm" *
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Oct. 4, 1851, page 18, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_04101851/page/18/
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