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April 20, 1850.] {£#£ &tafr*t; $3
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SATURDAY, APRIL 20, 1850.
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===:=======^^ s*A i i ? r*i Hv ? J^ltlllir SullllM ^jk\t + n, AUiwu^if —
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There is nothing so revolutionary, becau...
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THE SUFFRAGE MOVEMENT. Support for the g...
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MR. ROWLAND HILL'S REPORT ON" POST-OFFIC...
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.
April 20, 1850.] {£#£ &Tafr*T; $3
April 20 , 1850 . ] { £#£ & tafr * t ; $ 3
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Saturday, April 20, 1850.
SATURDAY , APRIL 20 , 1850 .
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There Is Nothing So Revolutionary, Becau...
There is nothing so revolutionary , because there is nothing so unnatural and convulsive , as the strain to keep things fixed when all the world is by the very law of its creation in its eternal progress . —Dr .. Arnold .
The Suffrage Movement. Support For The G...
THE SUFFRAGE MOVEMENT . Support for the great public movement which is to be practically initiated by the conference at the London Tavern on Monday next , is eagerly demanded by many active politicians in all parts of the country , especially in the large towns . We are enabled to proclaim that fact on the most positive knowledge . The delegates who will assemble from so many quarters , unless they possess a more than usual amount of eloquence , will faintly express the solicitude which they leave behind them , that the meeting may prove adequate to its
purposethat it may be distinct in plan , firm in council , energetic in action , and that its main object , a decisive extension of the Parliamentary franchise , may be carried out speedily and effectively . That is the feeling , we say , in all the large towns , especially towards the North . There is no doubt also that the men sent up will be thoroughly imbued with the feeling of their native places , that they will be well-picked men , accustomed to public action , accustomed also to act together , and determinately bent on the object for which they are collected . These traits of the great public conference might be accepted as the strongest omens of success .
The very desire for the conference , and the symptoms of hopeful success , however , give a remarkable significance to a certain anxiety on the subject . Why , with so much strength , and so animated a hope , should such a thing as anxiety exist ? Why should the solicitude be shown , as it is , to gather recruits in support of the movement ? There is manifestly a feeling , not only of aspiration and hope , but also a fear ; a fear lest the movement should fail , or that its success should be deferred so long as to amount in present value to failure .
The reason , we think , is as plain as the feelmg , and it is one . that might be obviated . That is to say , it might be obviated if the men who take the lead in the movement possess sufficient strength of character—sufficient candour , practical wisdom , and courage to revise their plan of campaign in a leading essential . The fear of failure has two sources . One is the small progress which the movement has hitherto made in raising the hopes of its friends , or striking its opponents with any sense of irresistible destiny . The other is , that the People , emphatically so called , do not come forward in a body to lend their numbers and
weight to the movement . Although public and extensive in its dimensions , the movement is not national , and it can in no degree pretend to be so . Although aided by recruits from various classes , on the whole the movement is one within a particular class of the population—the middle class , with a contingent from the working class attracted to it by the promise of political and social advantage ; with a few recruits of the wealthier and more educated kind , drawn by the usual motives of ambition seeking a ready field . But the movement does not embrace the nation , nor any very large section of the nation . It cannot be described as national south of the Tweed or north of the
Thames , nor by any other geographical limit . It , therefore , entirely fails to command either the confidence or the respect due to a national movement . This unnational character is the direct and distinct result of a direct and deliberate intention on the part of those who have planned the agitation . It was within their choice to make it national or sectional in its objects , and they have deliberately chosen to make it sectional . The main proposition is , to extend the suffrage very widely . There are
scarcely any arguments for a very wide extension of the suffrage which may not be used in favour of universal suffrage , under proper checks against fraudulent repetition of votes , or voting by thoi e who have forfeited civil rights . But we will nol now enter into the merits of the different k uds of suffrage : we are only considering the broad poliijcal effect upon the present movement of the parli'iilar limitation whinh has been adopted , ami we will merely now observe that the arguments advanced against the " complete suffrage" of
Birmingham , or the householder and lodger suffrage of Mr . Hume are identical with those advanced against universal suffrage . Mr . Roebuck ' s manhood suffrage is open to the same objections , differing neither in nature nor in degree . The resistance to be encountered , therefore , by these extensive but still limited suffrages is precisely of the same sor t with that to be encountered b y universal suffrage . But the very fact that it is not universal , that it does not propose to comprise the People as the People , nay , the comparatively
trifling fact that " manhood " suffrage is virtually universal suffrage , but somewhat pedantically repudiates the popular name , justifies the People in deeming that its own suffrage , its plan and purpose , are distinctly , deliberately , and expressly repudiated by the promoters of the Conference ; and it follows therefore , that the People as a body is disinclined to exert itself in favour of the movement . Henoe the remarkable phenomenon that a movement of so much magnitude , and commanding so extensive an interest , still remains a non-national movement .
The reason of this non-nationality , however , thus distinctly recognized , points to a change of Council , simple yet decisive , which may convert it from a non-national movement into a national movement ; supposing always that the leaders have sufficient sagacity , candour , and courage , to supply that serious omission in their project . There is another reason of a similar kind which hampers action : the object proposed ^ is not one great integer , but a collection of fragments . In that it differs from the great agitation which attained
so remarkable a success under some of the same leaders . Many times during the Anti-Corn-Law agitation it was proposed to compromise the main object , and to agitate for something less than the total and immediate repeal . There were periods , we know , when the most advanced leaders suffered a depression of their hopes . But , luckily , sturdier counsels prevailed : the Anti-Corn-Law leaders stuck to the " total and immediate . " and the seven years' agitation resulted not only in the fulfilment of that one single object , but also in the prompt
attainment of many most important consequences to that result . The simplicity of the object , its completeness , and definite character thoroughly fitted it to be the standard of popular action . It was a thing that needed no circumlocutory explanation . Although , like the present movement , it did not command the hearty support of the greatest multitudes , they being engaged upon other matters , —it enabled all the classes who did share in it to throw themselves heart and soul into the effort , without holding back their action , lest it should go too far . The peacemeal counsels which would have spoiled the Anti-Corn-Law agitation , appear , unthe ob
luckily , to have prevailed in determining ject of the present agitation . But even were the professed object of the conference better suited to be the standard of thoroughgoing political activity , the circumstances of the day are such as to render it more than ever desirable to import the People into the agitation . The times are duller , —there is less stir of opinion , — political motives are fainter , —and classes who once were able to raise funds so large , and to canvass recruits with so much energy , are conscious that their own vivacity has greatly died away . It might be said that the political world of England just now is blase * —worn out with excitement . The
condition of the People is somewhat different : it is not worn out with satisfied excitement , but , relieved for the time from the worst troubles and sufferings which are apt to instigate movements among the multitude , and thwarted also in that agitation which it maintained so long , the People is politically in retreat . But so far is it from being worn out , that convictions , or even its final hopes ,
are as living as ever . If anything like a strenuous political effort on the part of the middle classes is less probable than it was in 1830 , the reposing People retains all its faculties to be aroused on a summons ; and a summons from its fellow-countrymen of the classes prominent in the present agitation , framed in sincerity and heartiness , would be welcomed as political summons never wus welcomed before .
The most formidable reasons against the modification of the plan which we would so earnestly submit to the consideration of the leaders have been exploded within these few years . Universal suffrage is no longer the bugbear that it was . JNo longer blinded by fear , practised politicians are enabled to discern some of the most immediate and the largest advantages which it offers . It furnishes one means of obtaining the popular voice upon
national policy and action . It is a means , therefore , of obtaining , whether for political leaders or for the Government of a country , the popular sanction—that sanction without which any official or political action cannot claim to be " national ; " it is a means , and the only one that at present offers , of placing public leaders in communication with the People whom they are to lead . Under the present arrangement of the English Republic there is no such communication whatever . " The voice of the People" is unknown ; the leaders have no access
to it ; their trade is carried on by guess work , and they have to conjecture its success or failure after the fact , through the imperfect utterance of the mob—the turbulent part of the people drawn out in holiday or riot . With universal suffrage the public leaders of this vast community might once more talk about " the country , " and patriotism might become something more practical than a classical term for public spirit . Finally , if the
leaders of the present movement could recruit their forces , in the lump , by that one contingent , the People , they would obtain for their action a momentum which can in no other way be acquired , and which would at once endow them with a power greater than that proposed by any of their antago - nists . An intelligent party thus supported would become at once the most powerful party in the country—the true governor de facto of England .
Mr. Rowland Hill's Report On" Post-Offic...
MR . ROWLAND HILL'S REPORT ON " POST-OFFICE SUNDAY LABOUR . No topic of sectarian agitation has occasioned more rancour and misrepresentation than that of Sunday labour in the Post-office . With one party the object has , no doubt , been to damage the present Government , by representing it as " Infidel" in its tendencies , and as always anxious to please the commercial and manufacturing classes ; with
another party the object is simply to use this official annoyance as a means of promoting the general agitation for abolishing Sunday labour of every description;—the end of course sanctifying the means . Let the Morning Herald and Standard say whether we misrepresent the political party that has been nicknamed * ' the Saints "; let the Patriot and other journals of its kind correct us if we err as to the Sabbatarian agitators . Or rather , if they care for the truth of the matter , let them read Mr .
Rowland Hill ' s Report to the Postmaster-General , showing the results of the measures recently adopted for the reduction of Sunday labour in the Post-office . The whole of the evidence in that report goes to prove the utter falsehood of the charge brought against the Post-office authorities that they have lately been devising schemes to increase the amount of labour on Sunday . The fact , most clearly established , is , that during the last two years every possible effort has been made to lessen labour on th ; it day , and that the measures
adopted for this purpose have been signally successful . By closing the provincial offices throughout England and Wales from ten to five on Sunday , by restricting Sunday deliveries in provincial towns to one , and by providing for the transmission of the " forward " letters through London on Sunday , bo as to be delivered on Monday , no less than GOOO Post-office clerks have been relieved from
Sunday labour on the average to the extent of more than five hours and a half each . And all this has been effected without throwing additional labour upon any other set of men . Instead of requiring a large number of new clerks for the special purpose of carrying out the recent changes , we find that the number of men employed in the London office on Sunday will , in a short time , be less than it was before those changes took place : —
• ' On the completion of the arrangements , now f . ir advanced , ihe whole Sunday force ordinarily employed in the London office will be reduced to five or six mt'ii , which , even with tho addition of the ten clerks employed in the mail trains ( and their duties will trench but little on the observances of the Sundny ) , will make a toial force of little more than half thttt employed hti ' nrc the 28 th October last . "
And yet all the furious attacks made by the Standard , the Patriot , and the Hominy Herald , upon Mr . Rowland J 1 ill . and the Post-office authorities , for their threatened wholesale " desecration of the Sabbath , " were founded upon the assumption that certain measures were in progress for a large increase of the number of clerks to be employed , and the amount of work to be done on Sunday .
Another document of a very interesting nature has been issued along with the report—a copy of Mr . Rowland Hill ' s Minnie to the Postmaster-General on the total suspension of Post-o / jJcu business on the Sunday . Mr . Hill had been re-
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), April 20, 1850, page 11, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_20041850/page/11/
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