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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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DEPORTATION OP CHILDBBN TO BERMUDA . An official investigation was opened before M * . Richard Hall , the Metropolitan Poor-law Inspector , on Wednesday , into the circumstances attendant on the recent deportation of pauper children from the parish of St . Pancras to Bermuda . A number of witnesses were examined , who stated that previously to the children being sent out , every enquiry was made as to their future care and prospects , which was perfectly satisfactory . In each case fhe consent of the children and their parents had been obtained , and many had been anxious to go who were
refused permission . No pressing whatever had been sued . The children who had gone out were Very happy in the colony , and frequently spoke of the kind treatment of the directors . They were all in situations , and doing well in the families of the middling and higher classes residing there . The last batch of children , two adult girls , ten girls , and nine boys , sailed on the 16 th of October . They were all engaged before they left England , and Captain Burrows saw them all in their places and settled before he returned to England . The general arrangements of the vessel were of the first order . Several
letters were read from the boys , stating that they had no regret at having gone out to Bermuda . Mr . Hall , who had conducted his enquiry with a reference to the most minute particulars , then went over the house , and examined personally many of the children in the schools , all of whom expressed themselves anxious to go abroad .
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THE SAILORS' STRIKE . The strike amongst the seamen , which broke out in Sunderland on Monday week , and which now extends from Blyth to Whitby , threatens to be of more serious consequence , and a greater hindrance to the trade and commerce of the district , than was at first anticipated . Involved with the demand for wages is a fixed and determined opposition on the part of the men to the Mercantile Marine Act , and the shipping-offices established under that act . The grievances complained of are—first , the registerticket , which they consider a badge of slavery , distinguishing them from other working men of the country . Second , the shipping-offices and shippingmasters , each seaman going a foreign Voyage having to sien articles before a shipping-master , and be
discharged before the same functionary . The owner of the vessel paying something less than 10 s . for each 100 tons of his vessel , according to size and measurement , the crew having , in repayment of those sums , to pay the mate and carpenter 2 s . 6 d . each time of signing articles and being discharged , and an ordinary seaman , Is . This the seamen , and shipowners too , consider an oppressive tax on their labour . It more especially affects the seamen of these northern ports , inasmuch as many of the foreign voyages , to Hamburgh , France , and Holland especially , are just about equivalent to a London voyage , on which there is no shipping-master ' s tax . The interference by the Board of Trade with what the sailors call " their domestic arrangements on board ship " are exceedingly obnoxious to the seafaring population .
The shipping-offices are at present a dead letter , as the men will not enter them to sign articles , or be discharged ; and at present a number of vessels are detained in port on account Of the men refusing to go on shore to the shipping-office . On Monday the clerks belonging to the shipping-ofnco 9 on the Tyne went on board a number of foreign-goinp ships and got the crews to sign articles . Otherwise the vessels would have had to lie in port . The great bulk of the vessels in the port of Tyne lie at Shields , and considerable uneasiness has been felt in that large seaport town , occasioned by the number of men walking
about out of employment . Large meetings of the seamen are held every day , but no violence has been done , except on Friday and Saturday . On the former day a mob of three hundred men attacked the shipping-office at North Shields , and put a stop to the business transacting in it , causing some captains and crews that were coming there to sign articles to fly for their lives . On Saturday night twenty men went on boitrd the Commerce , collier , ready for sea , and the crew having signed articles for under wages ordered them anhore . Upon the carpenter refusing to comply with their demand he was hauled up from below and roughly handled .
On Monday the Mayor and magistrates of Tynemouth , in anticipation of a largo open-air meeting that wiin called by the seamen to be held on the New Quay that evening , brought down eighty armed -policemen from Neweantle , and took poHSCsaioii of the square , the policemen driving off the seamen who wcro lounging about the quay ut the point of the cutliiHH . The seaiucii of tbo town , about u thounand , mot in tho iiKHCiubly-roomM , and the tivoning puHtu . 'd off without any diHturbance . In the ovent of u riot , the military wan ready at ten minutes' notice . Tho Mayor of Tynemouth ban written to tho Admiralty to Bend n witr-Htemnur down to the Tyno , to protect tho shipping . There are not Iohh than botweon 0000 and 7000 men on wtriko ut tho prouont moment .
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THE QUEEN DOWAGER'S ANNUITY . In the Court of Queen ' s Bench , on Monday , the question relating to the late Queen Dowager » an nuity Was again brought under discussion . A rule had been obtained by Lord Brougham , as one of the exooutora of Queen Adelaide , calling upon the Lords of the Treasury to show oauno why a mandamus should not bo issued commanding thorn to pay the executors tho amount of the annuity due for thequarter ending the 30 th day of December , 1849 . In the act granting An annuity of £ 100 , 000 to tho Quden Dowager , tho payment was ordered to be made at tho iour moHt usual days of payment in the ye | ir » that is to say , the 31 st of March , the 30 th of J " > the 30 th of September , and the 29 th of December . The King died on the 20 th of June , 1837 , «"" « " first quurter ' s annuity wus paid on the 30 th of the sumo month , on tho ground thut there could bo n <> apportionment ot tho quarter . Tho Queen DoW » B < diet ! on tho 2 nd of December , 1841 ) , and it was extended , on tho part of her executors , that she wuh entitled to tho whole amount for tho quarter ending December ? 80 th , or , at leant t 6 an apportionment ot
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loo ffiU ^ matter * iSMttmmr ,
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THE EDINBURGH REVIEW ON " CHRISTIAN SOCIALISM . " Mit . Kingsley ' s Reply . To the Editor of the Morning Chronicle . Everslet itectory , Jan . 24 . Sir , —In your notice of the first article in the last Edinburgh Review , you . hinted an opinion that tbe writer of it had not been perfectly just to the " English Socialists , " who are therein denounced . I should not think of asking for any of your space to expose the different misrepresentations in that article , in as far as they bear on the great questions of labour and capital , but as the writer has attributed certain opinions to Professor Maurice and to me which we have always disclaimed , and never more distinctly and pointedly than in the publications from which the charge is dedueed , I may , perhaps , ask your permission to contradict a few of the statements which are most directly at variance with fact . I am the more anxious to do so in your Journal , because we both feel great gratitude to you for the light which you have thrown on the condition of the labouring poor . First , then , the reviewer has founded on a single passage in a tract of mine , in -which I attack the notions of those economists who maintain competition to be the great law of the universe , and who persist in trying to solve , by the canons of their own science , moral and anthropological problems utterly foreign to Its sphere , the assertion that it is our practice and rule to fevile political economy . This charge is not only not true , but the direct reverse of the truth . In letters , addressed to working men , whose prejudices agftinBt political economists are very strong , I have expressed my conviction of the necessity of diligently studying all that they have written , arguing that n 6 social movement can prosper which violates any of
those economic laws which they have discovered , and that we cannot hone to arrive at any clearer light on social points , if we do not avail ourselves of that which we possess already . In my Alton Locke I have referred more than once , with the most heartfelt admiration , to Mr . John Mill ' s great work ; especially , if my memory serves me right , to the very chapter which the reviewer quotes for the purpose of demolishing our supposed conclusions . Professor Maurice has never , for the last twenty years , as far as either he or his friends are aware , spoken a word in disparagement 6 f political economy , or of any who have contributed to the elucidation of its principles ; and on a very recent occasion , when he delivered a lecture on the motives which led us
to promote the establishment of -working men s associations , he pointed out the gross injustice of identifying political economy with the idolatry of competition . Mr . Herman Merivale , formerly professor of political economy in the University of Oxford , attended that lecture , and may be quoted , if need be , as a witness for the truth of this assertion . Secondly . —The reviewer says that we wish to call ourselves " Communists . " If he had read a single one of the tracts upon which alone any knowledge of our principles can be founded , he would have seen that , Instead Of choosing the name , we have carefully avoided it- ^ -not
only because its associations are offensive , but because it expresses exactly what we are not , and what , ae he is shown in a passage of Proudhon , which ho somewhat naively quotes , we cannot bo . If his quoting that passage means anything , it must mean thi»—that we , as Socialists , believe tho sanctity of family life to be the germ of all society , as indeed we do ; and that thia leads necessarily to a firm respect for monarchy , as indeed it does In our case ; but that Communism , because it begins by denying family life , is alone consistent with that modern " coalition in which each i » retained by the law of eelf-interest , " of which he proclaims himself the
champion , with which assertion also we most fully agree . For we have asserted , and now assert again , that a most horrible and hateful form of Communism exists already in this country ; that it is proved to exist , not only by your articles , but by the evidence of factory commiHsioncrs and Government statistics ; that we at tribute the growth of this Communism to the present system { that there is no object which we seek to earnestly as the restoration of that domestic life which threatens to become extinct among English labourers . When , then , the reviewer , acquitting us ( in terms ) of aiming at the more atrocious results which are oonneoted with the word Communism , evidently wishes that thoy should be usnociated with our names and acts in the rnindtf of his renders , we answer by boldly charging on him that which he only inuinuatcH against us—by asserting , on the authority of his own quotation from the " sagacious" Proudhon , that his dootrlnew , and not ours , are the ones which lead to the destruction of property , monarchy , and family life . Thirdly . —He says that we " deny that slow improvements or gradual ameliorations will meet the wants of Hooicty . " Professor Muurioo distinctly said , in tho only tract of hi » which the reviewer has noticed , that we look to nothing eluoj that wo have no faith In great schftmofc ,
and only invite individuals to take part in the humblest and most cafttiotu efforts on the very stnalletf scale . Fourthly . —He says that We wish to ihtrotW !* " the antagonistic and regenerative principle 6 t artdeiation into society , " in order that w « might •< rentodel" it . On the contrary , we havfc aid repeatedly , tnat the cooperative principle i « the principle of society Already ; that all great . achievements have been the frtufbf . it . Professor Maurice told a meeting ! of working men in Manchester , three weeks ago , that they owed their machines , their manufactures , their oity itself to cooperation—that it is not a new principle , but the eldest ofalL
Fifthly . —The reviewer charges us with appealing to feelings and rejecting science . I appfehend the very . words " organisation of labour" are" an answer to the complaint . Our science , of the science of Socialists" generally , may be very bad , but any one wh 6 has ever read a line of any Socialist ' s knows that his temptation Is to set too much , not too little , store by science . The exposure of evils which exist we call statements of facts . If the reviewer chooses to call them " sentiments" he is welcome to do so . He is the innovator in the use of language , not we . We have protested again and again— -Alton Locke is full of protests—against the eentimentalism of bestowing all help upon the outcasts of society , and next to none upon its actual working members- * - * sentimentaligm rendered inevitable by the present system , which for that reason especially we abominate .
Sixthly . —He insinuates that we seek for the realization of the future of the working classes by a recurrence to mediaeval errors . Whence he deduces such an assertion I am at a loss to conceive . Fox myself , 1 have as great a dislike to medievalism in political as I have in ecclesiastical matters } and Professor Mauriee , in the very tract of his which the reviewer attacks , attributes M . de Montalembert ' s dislike of Socialism to his mediaeval tastes , and points out the absurdity of trying to seek for the future of the working classes by a recurrence to them .
Lastly . — He insinuates that we would "induce the working men to rely on external aid for objects which must be achieved by themselves , if they ara achieved at fill , and to seek their emancipation in a change of circumstances or social arrangements rather than in u change of character and conduct . " I affirm this charge to be utterly unfounded . Professor Maurice has written more than one tract for the purpose of combatting directly the latter error } and the whole moral of Alton Locke from beginning to end , is directed against the former one . Nay , the whole autobiography of one of the characters is devoted to exposing the fallacy of " Coningsbyism , " or the system Which would make the poor feudal dependants
on the exertions and bounty of the rich . The working men at least can testify that our great aim throughout has been to show them , that they " must achieve all great ends for themselves , and not rely upon external aid" —that " they can hope for no ohange of circumstances and social arrangements except by a ohange of character and conduct . " Inateadof wishing the labourer to depend more upon his employer , our complaint has been that he already depends on him too much ; and the only great change in the relation of rich and poor which we wish to see carried out , is one which , as Mr . John Mill has perfectly expressed It , " shall entitle the labourer to hire the capital which he requires , instead of , as at present , capitalist hiring the labourer . "
The reviewer says that it no pleasure" to him to break butterflies on the wheel . Ofoourse it is not ; but if lie has felt compelled by a stern sense 6 f duty to undertake that ignominious office , he should , for his own sake , depart , even in his treatment of butterflies , from the hablta of fairness and veracity which are expected of gentlemen . —I am , Sir , your obedient servant , ClrAitLEB KiifGBlB-r , Jun-
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Feb. 1, 1851, page 100, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1868/page/4/
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