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that language treats only of petty squabbles between the representatives of " interests "; and they use not the native-born tongue of flesh and blood which every man of us that has sucked his mother ' s milk can understand and answer to , with every thought of our brow and every throb of our veins ; but the technical jargon of so-called sciences , the cant of sect , or the worse cant of political indifferentism . A language which is small in its ideas , cold in its feeling , invidious in its constructions ; is not the language of the People exclusively , but is the language of politicians in whatsoever class . writers and
It is not because our public speakers use long words with Latin roots and over-refine in French-English , that the working classes do not understand our educated classes : it is because those classes do not speak of substantial things , because they flinch from speaking to natural feeling . For example , when it is a question whether right measures have been taken to secure for every honest able man equal opportunity with his fellows to earn subsistence for himself , his mate , and his children by the sweat of his brow , they fall to talking of averages , of imports and exports , " aggregate which
amount of cereals , " and such like jargon , may tell us that there is plenty of food within the four seas for the whole mass of the People , but does not gainsay the notorious fact , that the food does not reach the hungry stomachs of the People . Say that , so long as the land is unexhausted , the first charge upon it must be the subsistence for the People born to the land , and you are answered with some jargon about " proprietary rights . " The People do not understand this language , which is " educated" language . And left to themselves by other classes , they have fallen , like those other classes , into a dialect orcant of their own .
But there is , I say , a broad substantial language overriding the whole of these classes , speaking in the tongue of our common nature ; and , if we have forgotten to speak that language , the fault lies less in the dulness or ill-training of the People than in the degeneracy of patriotism , which has fallen away from the mother -tongue . It may be true that you cannot serve the People in the language to which the People has been abandoned : but reawaken the ear to the sound of the half-forgotten tongue , which
speaks to the People of their own feelings , and answers to them , and then you will see if you cannot serve the People in the language of the People . You must not pretend to be above their passions and their wishes . The passions are born to them , and they have a right to the wishes . You must speak to them of substantial things . Tell them that every man born of woman knows what hunger is , and that you will not rest while things are so that one is over-full and another empty . Tell them that this broad land on which the sun shines ,
over which the winds and the rain sweep from end to end , belongs to all , though it has been parcelled out on the pretext of a trust to use it for all . Speak to them thus , and they will know that their instincts and the fact accord . Tell them , for they know it , that the fiction of our law is to make taxation coextensive with representation , but that , in fact , four out of five of us pay taxes without any representation at all . Speak to them , I say , in this broad substantial language , which they understand , and then they will be willing to hear what further you may have to say : nor will it be difficult to tell the remainder in the same substantial language .
You say that the People will not support its own Leaders , and you stamp with not unmerited censure the puny patriotism which flinches from making almost the only sacrifice that can be made in our day—the sacrifice of money . I should put the cane somewhat diilerently . Our long peace has enervated men of action . Our flourishing trade has unduly exalted trading influences . Our numerous , hut still exceptional ,, accumulations of wealth have continued and encrcascd the separation of classes , eyen after the feudal idea of clanship has departed . l'h « opportunities of individual ambition have diminished — have almost given the precedency
' «) prudential painstaking—a mercantile quality . I <> r these reasons men fitted by the accidents «> f position or by training to take the lead of tin-. I ' coplo have at once ceased to appreciate the necessity of a popular gathering at their hack , and have learned a Hellish dislike to risk or nacrinee . 'lut in the Ntognation of political movement , in the utter impossibility to make their blows tell , the i- 'icu of action of our day are rediscovering the fact < Imt official mum and their local retainers can heat uiein at the ehesn hoard games of election witli a limited mill ' iage , and that no real movement worth 1 < ading against the aatinfied party of Finality can be
carried through , unless the Leaders have the People at their back . The low standard of public virtue which gives the lead , among the working classes , to the charlatanthe strong loud man—* ' the bloody bold Sansloy" or empty Bullcalf , is but the same thing with the low standard in other classes . In all classes the object with public men is less things or deeds than appearances . To g-ain the confidence of the working classes the proper appearance was that of boldness , zeal , or substantialness . Hence the loud bluster ot which others paid the penalty , the plans for restoring the land to the People which could only give to the favoured few the blessing of an allotment or a litigation .
To understand these difficulties is to discern our facilities . " The degeneracy of the race' * is nonsense . Bad laws and trading ascendencies are doing their best to make us all paupers or puny shopmen . But old suits of armour , relics of our stalwart champions , are measures to prove that the staple of the race has not shrunk . " I cannot bring myself , " writes an excellent friend in the South , " to the popular notion in England of the degeneracy of the Italians as a People and of the permanent decadence of Italy . With a fine climate , a fertile soil , and a race physically not degenerate , I
cannot see any reason to despair of seeing Italy resume its prosperity and occupy a worthy position among nations . " Surely as much may be said of the English People , overlaid though it has been by the classes that have monopolized the name , the resources , the Government of England , —the produce , the soil itself , and the " suffrages , " that is the wishes or permissions of the People . Yes , we have , however stunted and stifled , the same ambitions as of old among public men , the same
energy and intelligence in the People . We see these inherent energies showing themselves , but separately , and , therefore , feebly in the surviving efforts of Chartism , in Financial and Parliamentary Reform , more vaguely and largely in the rising idea of Social Reform . The thing wanted to give life and vigour to these energies still struggling to rise above the surface is to bring the separated elements of political movement together . There needs no very cumbersome process' or newlyinvented machinery for such a purpose .
The first great step is to let public men , of whatsoever class , recognise the wants and wishes of the People , not as they exist in theories or are expressed in jargons , but as they exist in living " flesh and blood , yearning with urgent wants or throbbing with great aspirations , and as they are expressed in the broad bold mother tongue . The People of England are half employed or overemployed , half-wageless , half-fed , mostly ill-lodged , all landless . Say so . Say it out . Say that you will do your best to secure them labour as the means of food , a hold on the land as the guarantee for both .
Offer them those things , or as good as those , in plain terms . Propose some policy which shall be national in its scope , manifestly and tangibly beneficial to the people , and see then if they do not understand you , and if you do not obtain their cooperation . It is not necessary that organized agitations should depart from their purpose : the Chartists may still seek the Charter , Financial Reformers retrenchment ; but public men who wish to strengthen both those agitations will seek to do so by infusing greater boldness into the one , a more tangible add material bearing into the other . And they will seek a machinery by which the active politicians of every class may come together ; by which , without any servile dependency or precarious " compact , " they may coir . e to a common understanding as to what each is doing , and so shape their own course that it shall at once receive and give the strength of a common drift in the general progress . It would not be more difficult to plan such a Political Exchange than it would be to adopt a broad language intelligible to the whole People , and once more to bring out the People itself to the back of public leaders , in forcing the ( Government forward . Let me recapitulate . These are the essentials of a national party and a national movement : —To adopt the native mother tongue , ever eloquen t in the wants and wishes of the People , never unintelligible to the sons of tlic « oil ; to advance a policy directly and explicitly meeting those wants and wishes , materially an well a « morally : to trust in principles once adopted , und follow them through ; to establish n common understanding among thu soldiers of progress . Ever , my dear Holyoake , your firm friend and fellow-workman , Thornton Hunt .
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Expectation stands tiptoe to greet Borrow ' s long-promised autobiography , which is almost the only book announced that seems likely to make a noise . After a two-years' delay it is now positively said to be ready . Beyond that Literature seems uneventful . Parliament is about to begin its labours , and the Papal Aggression gains fresh intensity as a public question , the old trash being repeated with new emphasis . Mr . Greenwood ' s pamphlet on
Protestant Churches is lauded in the Times : but that Journal does not inform its readers how England has brought this " aggression" on herself by her stupid bigotry in refusing the Concordat offered at the last settlement of Europe . Are our readers all aware that in no other county , not even Catholic , could such an " aggression" have taken place , simply because the Concordat gives to the temporal sovereign of each country the power of veto ? An
anecdote will illustrate this : Some years ago the Law Professor , Dolliner , was expounding the law of marriage at Vienna , and he wound up with stating that after the civil contract had been fulfilled , the blessing of the priest , though it might be desirable , was by no means necessary to constitute a legal marriage ; nay more , that there was nothing in the Canon Law which made the priestly blessing necessary . For this the Pope placed the Professor under the ban . Dolliner obtained an
interview with the Emperor to complain of this excommunication , his crime being simply that of expounding the law as it stood . The Emperor smiled and answered , " But I have not sanctioned this Bull ; put it in your pocket ; it must first have my sanction . " Dolliner placed the Bull in a frame and hung it up in his study . We were offered a Concordat which would have
made the consent of Government a necessary part of any innovation ; but like pious Protestants we refused to have anything to do with the Scarlet Lady , and now we complain of her taking us by surprise !
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Feb . 1 , 1851 . ] ffft * 3 Lt&ntt . 107
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Critics are not the legislators , but the judges and police of literature . They do not make laws—they interpret and try to enforce them . — Edinburgh Jievieto .
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Our readers had a glimpse of the philosophy set forth in Time , the Avenger , and may remember that we predicted it would be eulogized for its profundity . So it has turned out . One enthusiastic writer actually says of it , that " It appeals to the intellectual , the reflective , the pious : it has a lofty purpose ; it is not to be read and thrown aside , but treasured and reread as a lesson of virtue taught by example . " De ytistibus , fyc . ; but one would like to know the names of such critics , though we very much doubt whether praise would he squandered so recklessly if men had to endorse it with their names , because in that case one would have a measure of the man's ability . The mask hides many a blush . Mentioning critics , leads us to the prince of feuilletonistes , Jumcs Jan in , who figures , incidentally , this week in a law court . It appears that the manager of the VarietcH deprived J . J . of his right of admission , which furnished . Ianin with a humorouH fcuilleton deploring his unhappy condition at being thus deprived ofsoimmcn . se a favour . The Sivcle \ vn » angry at this insult ; ottered to the finst of critics , the pride of the feuillcton , and proposed that all the critics should henceforth ignore the VarieteB altogether . This became alarming , and the manager wrote a letter to the Sit : clc , saying that he had deprived . 1 . J . of lii : s entroe . s , because he had rcfuiscd to notice ; the theatre , unless an actreHH , whom he favoured , were reengaged there . The Siecle , knowing thin to be false , refused inser tion to the letter , and an action was brought to make it do ho . Hut the judge gave a negative to the application , and condemned the manager to costs .
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Feb. 1, 1851, page 107, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1868/page/11/
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