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1090 &*> t 9Lt&%tt. [Sawrdav ,
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JutrAisr, the ArosTATi:.—Julian, the apo...
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literature.
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Critics ate not the legislators, but the...
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Beautifully and profoundly was it said b...
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Apropos of war, in the last North Britis...
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Complaints of literary piracy are as old...
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Among the new works wo hasten to ann< j ...
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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.
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Social Reform. " Notes Ok A Social. (Eco...
ligious disputations , having respect for the honest and sincere opinions of men of every creed and every faith . Their motto is : — 'Do unto others as you would that others should do unto you . ' ' * Place of meeting , Large-room , Temperance Coffee-house , Irwell-street , Salford , every Sunday evening at six o'clock . " In Pendleton , another of the numerous suburban townships of Manchester , there is a joint-stock association , with sixty looms at work , the Whitlane Weaving Company , in which a portion only of the operatives employed are shareholders , having association
a voice in the management . This was established on the 28 th of December , 1850 , in consequence of a " strike" which took place in the extensive mills of Sir Elkanah Armitage in Pendleton : the operatives asserting that their wages were lower , the masters , that they were " not inferior to any paid in the cotton trade . " It is , in reality , the UNEMPLOYED WHO DETERMINE THE RATE OF wages ; but the daily improvement in machinery , or rather the substitution of machines for men , while it diminishes the necessity for manual strength , skill , and labour , at the same time increases the rank ' s of those " who determine the rate of wages . " If a master , for instance , who employs one hundred 1
operatives in some manufacturingprocess , purchase or invent a machine which will perform the labour of fifty of them , he is at once enabled to discharge these fifty operatives , who are thus driven into the ranks of "the unemployed , who determine the rate of wages ; " and , by the inexorable law of competition , must perforce beat down the wages of the other fifty . So that the master , not merely takes the whole profit arising from the difference between the cost of labour of fifty operatives and the cost of labour of a fifty-man machine power , but he also takes the sum of thereduction in wages of the fifty operatives whom he still continues to employ : until his profits also be reduced by the competition of other machines , i . e ., capital , or accumulated labour . Yet the political oRconomists still continue to assert that uniler the
competitive system the interests of the employed and the employers are identical—the sordid money profit interests , by no means to be confounded with the true moral and social interests of the whole community , which must sympathize more or less acutely , consciously or unconsciously , with the sufferings of each one of its members ; with the dying curse of the starving Irish peasant , and with the final exit of "the first gentleman of Europe , " whose funeral was celebrated in London by a general holiday .
I must postpone , till next week , the first half yearly report of the Whit-lane Weaving Company William Coningham .
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1090 &*> t 9 Lt & % tt . [ Sawrdav ,
Jutraisr, The Arostati:.—Julian, The Apo...
JutrAisr , the ArosTATi :. —Julian , the apostate , was a type of this party . He , too , had his retrograde philosophy which nourished itself upon the Past . lie thought that the Myths of Paganism were capable of answering all those moral needs which Christianity came to answer ; and he insisted that his subjects should accept them , believe them , live by the-in . It never occurred to him that , if the garments still fitted men , they would not have been cast aside ; and thut ,
if men . had outgrown them , it was evidence of the garments being no longer suitable . It was in vain he proclaimed the Christians atrt ^ tiq and ctQeot , because they would not believe in the antique godfi—those gods " under whom millions had been happy . " Christianity was not to be set aside by royal edicts ; it answered to the moral needs ; the antique gods were broken in their temples , and the nations gathered round the newTeaeher . —Brit . Q . Rev . No . 28 . Pkack and War . —We are not inobservant of the
talk of many of our " Peace Society " friends . JJut in our grave judgment the tendencies not a little of that talk are anything but wise , anything but humane . We have a deep horror of war—of the war which destroys by the sword . But we have a deeper horror still of the war that destroys by the many thousand forms of lingering deatli that are over taking place beneath the dark wings of the demon of absolutism . To ( lit ; in the battle-field may he terrible—to die in the night , and loneliness , and foulness of the dungeon is a thousand-fold more terrible . We lament that thousands should perish a « Hcainen or soldiers ; but we lament -with a biulder grief that millions should be dwarfed in mind ,
Corrupted in heart , thrust down from their place an men , to be used up as ho much mere material—and all that a certain family may rule , or that noine chance possessor of power may continue to possess it . AJmolutisin is the Upas tree of mind . It inverts every principle of morals . It knows nothing of religion except as an engine of state . Man ceases to bo man as subject to its pressure . Wo have no wish to see the world at the bidding of such mastera . Tho cost must bo great thut should not bo freely incurred to place it in far other hands . To boar with nbeolutlHin , wherever it can bo put down , is to be fain © to humanity and to God , —Ibid .
Literature.
literature .
Critics Ate Not The Legislators, But The...
Critics ate not the legislators , but the judges and police of literature . They do iiot make laws—they interpret and try to enforce them . — Edinburgh Ueview .
Beautifully And Profoundly Was It Said B...
Beautifully and profoundly was it said by the great Turgot , that no virtue could dispense with justice— " Auvune vertu , dans quelque tens qu ' trn prenne ce mot , ne dispense de la justice "—and yet howconstantly injustice is committed in the " cause " of virtue ! Were it not for the atheistic jesuistry of " doing evil that good may come " and of " lying
for God / ' how otherwise could be explained the terrible fact that preachers of a Gospel of Love , Charity , and Truth , should so shamelessly resort to the weapons of Malignity , Uncharitableness , and Falsehood ? How is it that the orthodox polemic can justify to himself proceedure such as his heterodox opponent would indignantly disclaim ?
An example lies before us . The Guardian and the Church and State Gazette have commenced warfare with the Leader , arid commenced in a spirit which we own pains us—pains us on far other than personal grounds . To such an organ as the Church and State Gazette we cannot even award the dignity of contempt ; the Guardian is , both by position and character , an enemy whom we would fain combat with the courtesy of respect . But what are the facts of the present case ? In a recent number of
this journal , among the reports of the news , there appeared the report of a funeral oration delivered by Mr . Holyoakb over the grave of Emma Martin . Observe , it was a report , not an article written for our journal . It took its place among various other reports of current events , occupying precisely the same position which a report of a papal aggression meeting or a Bible society meeting would occupy . It was introduced by these words : — " In the current discussions on reformations
affecting women , the public will learn with regret the decease of one able to have made valuable contributions to such a question . " We also stated that " it will be news to many classes that such things are thought and said in this metropolis " as those in Mr . Holyoake ' s oration . To furnish such reports was obviously our duty as journalists . Mere difference of opinion , however extreme , has never excluded anything from our columns : men of all parties have written in them , opinions of all shades have found free utterance ; we have permitted our correspondents to attack our opinions vehemently ,
cogently . Freedom haa been our watchword , and it has gained us friends in all directions—among Catholics , High Church , Low Church , Nonconformists , Unitarians , Sceptics ; the English Review , the Edinburgh Review , the Dublin Review , the North British Review , the British Quarterly Review , and Tait—all assuredly above suspicion of complicity with our views , —have quoted and mentioned us with respect : we say it to their honour . And the cause of this has been that the public has felt that we wero performing a just and honourable part in giving publicity to all opinions while unequivocally setting forth our own .
The Church aad Slate Gazette fastens upon the report just mentioned , and without hinting that it is taken from our news department , 6 uyH , after describing Emma Martin , " Such ia the sort of woman that the Leader deems fit forthecrisis in which
society in now supposed to be plunged . " It then declart'H that the writers in such a paper deserve to be held up to public notice , and , accordingly , it " gibbets" sonic of our contributors . The Guardian , although in a more gentle manly tityle , does the same thing . Now , wo appeal to any conscience , however obtuse , we appeal oven to the Church and
State Gazette , and ask what is the justice of such a charge ? Why , when our own opinions are stated ho frankly , have recourse to such disreputable subterfuges as taking u news article for the point of attack ? Why endeavour by dastardly and dirt y means to hurt the reputation of the distinguished men who have availed themselvOH of our tolerance of variety in opinion to enlighten and
amuse out readers , by " gibbeting" thenTaT ^ porters of views which they would repudiate ? We have studiously abstained from paper w fare . Our combats have been with princi ples if our antagonists insist upon it , war they shall L and to the knife ! Ve >
Apropos Of War, In The Last North Britis...
Apropos of war , in the last North British Revie there is a long and curious history of the p ° Congress , said to be by Sir David Bre ^ ster * We must say , however , that whatever force other arguments may have , the religious argument i singularly weak in this question . " « Thou ehalt not kill / stands a law without exception in the statute book of Heaven ; and the Creator , who made of one blood all the nations of the universe has nowhere given express permission to the
creature to appropriate a single drop of the lifegiving unity . " How is this reconciled with the very title of Jehovah as Lord of Hosts , with the great warlike spirit of the magnificent David , and with two thirds of the Bible ? How does it accord with that one striking and universal fact of incessant warfare in the creation , all life supported by other life , all organisms living on the destruction of other organisms , and man himself in the savage state spontaneously killing and devouring his fellow ?
It is quite true that Humanity says , " Thou shalt not kill ; " true that Religion says so most emphatically ; but it is not true that the Bible says so in the sense of forbidding war ; and our early prelates were not ill-placed among the leaders of warlike expeditions . But times change , and brin ^ their changes with them : our ideal is not now of universal conquest , but of universal brotherhood ; and Peace is the aspiration of the foremost minds , — not the Peace of servitude , not the Peace which shuts its eye to wrong , but the Peace which springs up from universal conviction of its efficacy .
Complaints Of Literary Piracy Are As Old...
Complaints of literary piracy are as old as Martial , who sighs to think that the Gauls are delighting in his verses , and he none the richer for it" Dicitur et nostros cantare Britannia versus . Quid prodest ? nescit sacculus istameus . " A sigh which many a French and English author heaves when he casts his eye on Brussels or America . But as there is no cause however bad
which cannot find a Church and State Gazette , the Brussels pirates have found an advocate in the writer of a small volume , La Reimpression . He affixes an epigraph which , while it exquisitely characterizes the book , has at the same time an agreeable audacity quite amusing . " Literary property is not property : la propricte litteraire n ' est pas une proprie ' te . " In other words , literary dishonesty \ k not dishonest : a maxim which we oiler to the
Church and State Gazette . The advocate is very strong in philanthropic considerations ; he objects to copyright as a " monopoly "—the poor , he says , are thereby deprived of good books ; hut he forgets to add that they are also deprived of pines , porcelain , carriages , yachts , and opera boxes . He objects to the term piracy—contrefacon ; he says it is a branch of "useful industry , " and ought to be called Reprinting ; and after explaining the advantages of that industry , naively adds , hn ¦ <¦ gujue , ct \ s verites sont depuis longtemj'S prises 1
Among The New Works Wo Hasten To Ann< J ...
Among the new works wo hasten to ann < j " ^ one from Giiixot , with tho promising title Meditations et Etudes morales ; a novel by Counter D'Oiihay , called L ' Ombre du lionHe ' m [ and . an important work by ( hoiuuiTi , J >* '" ^ rnento civile ( V Italia , the first part being < lcv mento civile a'Italia , me nrwi i" «« - »~—« ( j
^ to . the Errors und Schemes of the day ; the * cc ^ to Remedies and Ilopca . To those who loVC l u | i ) 0 literature wo know not what more atfreeablo v ( to recommend than tho one jufit foaiied oi * Bkuvk ' h Canserits du Lundi . It contain * & of tho best portraits ho haB ever «** ' ' JC _ churiiiiiiff gallery they make . Wo pa «« from i laih to Vauvknahoukh , from the Due do > Simon to Fukdmuick tho Great , from VW
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Nov. 15, 1851, page 14, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_15111851/page/14/
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