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ment to cornea and children , and even to artisans in K spare hours or slack time ; and a very little foresight might so regulate the alternation of field and mill-work , as to leave no one unemployed , even for a day , the whole year round . " On the benefits of such an arrangement to all employed , it would be hardly necessary to dilate . The labourer would gain , by xntercouise with the firtisan , the civilization and energy he now so sadly lacks . The artisan would acquire a health , a cleanliness , an elasticity of mind , too often impossible to him in a crowded city , amid alternations of protracted mill-labour and utter idleness . And the whole eommunitv . under the regulation of clerks and
superintendents , might afford employment , as our railways are no w doing , to a middle class far more enlightened , energetic , and humane , than the farmers who areribw too often despotic over labourers not more ignorant than themselves . "
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JOHN DRAYTON . John Drayton ; being A History of the Early Life and Developementof a Liverpool Enginejr . ' Z vols . Bentley . Many of our readers were amazingly wroth with us , because we spoke in terms far from flattering of Eugene Sue , and expressed our mediocre respect for his intellect , no less than our contempt for his shallow views of life and politics . Because it has pleased him to hoist the banner of Socialism , it was considered treacherous , if not worse , in a paper setting forth Socialist views , to stand erect before this popular idol , and , instead of bending a servile
knee to his Socialism and genius , to suspect the one and to deny the other . Our impartiality was interpreted as treachery . Be it known , however , that we have entered into no compact with Socialism , to praise every man who chooses to wear its uniform . In Literature , as in Life , we do not assort our friends with reference to the opinions severally held , but with reference to far deeper qualities . The books we most admire , the friends we most love , are not always those who most completely reflect our opinions . Eugene Sue might adopt every political crotchet we hold , and not alter our opinion of his moral nature nor of his
books ; and John Drayton , which now lies upon our table , with all its fierce denunciations against republicanism and infidelity , with all its intemperate language and unfair representation , cannot blind us to the power and worth of the writer . He insults our opinions ; he uses unfair weapons ; he is intolerant , scornful ; but he is in earnest , and his earnestess is accompanied by such evidences of geniality , power , loftiness of sentiment and of thought , and by such a fine conception of the noble life which man may live , if only true to his own better impulses—that we forget the insults , and welcome him aa a fellow-worker . The critic
who cannot raise himself above the divisions of party , who cannot recognize and love the noble qualities which distinguish the best among his enemies , may burn his pen at once , for his partizanship destroys him . John Drayton is a remarkable work . This is the more necessary to be said , because it has merits of a kind so unusual that the hurried reader may easily overlook them . No one will fail to remark its eloquence , its religious fervour , its picturesqueness ; but the restrained , unobtrusive power shown in its delineation of character , and in some of its
" interiors , is less upon the surface . We meet with workmen in its pages , such as we meet in daily life , such as we rarely meet with in books . The very absence of what is usually considered a story proves the power of the writer , who can rely upon character and scenes from the great drama of the working-man ' s life for the sustained interest of fiction . Were it not for the drawbacks of its intolerance , we should pronounce it thoroughly delightful and admirable ; and to a gentleman of clerical and Tory turn of mind it must be enchanting . Having recognized its excellence , we must arraign its author before the bar of justice to answer for
his sins . Is ho not , on reflection , ashamed of the vulgar artifice by which ho has enlisted the contempt of his readers for all Chartists and Infidels ? Doen he , in his heart of hearts , believe that Orator Wyld and the sceptic Robit-ou are fair typical representations of Chartism and Disbelief ? I ) och he believe that , he is writing truthfully and honourably m making the one a drunkard as well as an idle vagabond , the other a thief ? We waive all question of the truth or wisdom of the opinions entertained by Chartists and Infidels—we will even grant , for the sake of argument , that they are as wicked and absurd on John Drayton representsbut we Htill auk him whether he has so little oxperience of life as not to be aware how honestl y bucIi opinions may bo held , and by
what irreproachable men ? It would be as fair to say that all Chartists and Freethinkers are men of high moral and intellectual character , as to say that they are all Wylds and Robisons . That many of them are ignorant , and arrogant because ignorant—that many of them are merely trading politicians—is credible enough ; and their parallels may be found in all other classes ,
Radical , Whig , Conservative . Ihey arrogate to themselves the monopoly of truth and virtue , just as other classes do ; and just as other classes , they have all var ieties of good and evil . If the author of John Drayton , had given any intimation of his characters being individual and not typical , we could have accepted them ; but the animus which dictated that the leaders of the people should be liars , sots , thieves , and fools is as unmistakeable as it is disgraceful .
We have no intention of combating our author's opinions , belonging as they do to a school so antagonistic to our own ; but we may remark in passing that on all matters of speculation , religious , political , and moral , he is out of his natural element . He repeats the stereotyped phrases of his school , and repeats them with an accent which betrays that he is not one to think for himself . In the more emotive passages he is at home . His moral nature is eloquent and enthusiastic . His feelings give momentum to his convictions , and make them respectable from their sincerity . But we seize the occasion he offers us to make a remark upon a very popular but very foolish objection to the Development Theory : —
"la it a good way , do you think , to make men honourable and noble to tell them they're just the same stuff as monkeys ? " Weel , I'll no say , " said Ilobison , with a low laugh , " that its just a' thegither the plan for that . "
It is thought exquisite ridicule of the Development Theory , that man should have " originally been a monkey , " which that theory does not state ; but with reference to the supppsed " degradation " implied in that theory , might we not ask if it were the best way to make man honourable and noble to tell him he is just the same stuff as Rotten-row , for he was made out of " dust" ? Our purpose is with what man is , not what he was made from .
You cannot degrade Humanity by saying that it is the highest form of organized life known to us , and that lower forms , which more or less approach it , exist in the woods of Africa ; nor can you ennoble it by tracing its descent from the Heroes who became Gods . We are what we are , not what we were . Lo ! we show you a truth—which is after all a truism , though a neglected one ! It will be gathered from the foregoing paragraphs that in John Drayton , the reader , unless he be a Tory and a Churchman , will have much to forgive ; but forgive it he will for the sake of the genuine enthusiasm for good whicli animates so many of
its pages , and for its great pictorial representative power . Liverpool is brought before you in vivid scenes ; the life of the working-man is minutely and graphically depicted ; the aspirations and intellectual yeast fermenting in the minds of the working-classes , are set forth b y one who hates and dreads these things , and is , therefore , unjust to them ; but who at any rate has learned them from actual observation . The author will care little for our praise , less for our blame ; but we are much deceived in him if this our protest against the spirit in which he has treated his antagonists , does not open his eyes to one great blot on his book , to one irreligious and unchristian tendency in bis mind .
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l'ROWDHON . Idee . ( Jenfrala de . la Rcvolutitm . au XIX tHrcla . Ghoix d'Etude * stir la Pratique llevolutionnaire ft Induslrielle . Par . 1 ' . J . Proucilion . W . Ji-n ' a . ( Second Notice . ) Having hIiowu how Reactions help to define and accelerate revolutions , Proudhon passes to the « e-<*> nd section of bin work , and answers the question , Is there sufficient reason for a revolution in the nineteenth century ? He says that such a reason can be found only in the tendency of society , not in any particular grievance or group of grievances ; for the masses are not optimists nor pessimists ; they know thera is an eternal oscillation between Good and Evil—that " life is of a mingled yarn , wel ) and woof together "—and , provided the " tendency be towards good , they patiently endure particular evils . There wan misery enough in the seventeenth century , but no revolution ; for , among other rensont » , it was not evident to the masses that their misery wm more than the result of accidental causes : the absolute monarchy of Louis XIV . wan
a progress from feudalism . Nor was there revolution under Louis XV ., except in the intellectual world . It was believed that under a good prince all would go on well . The good prince came , yet things grew worse . Louis XVI . was welcomed with fanatical enthusiasm—and perished on the scaffold ! People saw that the evil was not in individuals but in principles . The Livre Rouge was published—the Revolution burst forth . By figures and by arguments Proudhon shows that the tendency of society in this nineteenth century is towards corruption and misery—that the
masses are becoming more and more the slaves of capital , that industry is becoming more and more anarchial . The Military Feudalism formerly directing society is becoming replaced by an ignoble Industrial Feudalism , if we may use the expression , which gives to Cotton Lords and Bankers the position of the Norman Baron , and reduces the workman to a condition worse than that of the Saxon serf . If the generalization be correct which we last week ventured to put forth , namely , that the Revolution of ' 89 was Political , that of ' 48 Social— - by its light we may see that after ' 89 the tendency
of society must have been , above all things , toward a an industrial regime—towards the due elaboration of an Organization of Labour . So it has been . Slowly , indeed , and hindered by the prolixity and complexity of all Social movement ; seemingly delayed by the various political tentatives which have filled up the intervening period—Directorial , Imperial , Monarchical , Constitutional , and Republican—yet , in truth , accelerated by the very experience of those tentatives , which served to prove that no political solution of the problem could suffice , simply because the problem was not political but social .
It is here we think Proudhon ' s views want clearness and coherence . He does not see that Society can attain no permanent change per saltum—it grows , it does not leap . He says that the Revolution of ' 89 had to destroy and to construct . In truth it had only to destroy : materials for construction were not to hand . The abolition of feudalism was not sufficient . There still remained in men ' s theories and habits the active principles
of military and governmental organization — the belief that Governments were the salvation of Society , and that Political Order was the first of social necessities—that , in other words , the solution must be political because the problem was political . This remained , long experience only could destroy it . Theories were powerless against it . The incompetence of Governments could only be proved by incessant failures . Even now it is proven only to the most advanced minds . But Proudhon would
have had the social solution at once put in operation immediately the feudal system was declared abolished : — " The feudal system having been thus abolished during the night of the 4 th of August , and the principles of liberty and civil equality declared , it followed that society must in future no longer be organized for politics and war , but for Labour . And , in fact , what was the feudal organization ? a purely
military organization . What is labour ? the negation of war . To abolish feudalism was to be condemned to perpetual peace , not only abroad but at home . By that sole act , the whole of the ancient system of policy between State and State , all the systems for maintaining the European balance , were abrogated : the same equality and independence which the llepublic was to promote between its citizens , wub to exist between nation and nation , province and province , city and city
* ' It was not , therefore , the Government which had to be organized after the 4 th of August , einco in making a Government nothing more was done than restoring ancient forms ; it was the Uiconomy of nations and the balance of interests . Since , according to the new law , birth was of no account , as labour hud replaced it ; since in external affairs the relations of nations amongst themselves were to be reformed upon the same principles , Boeing that civil rights , public rights , and private rights
are identical : it was evident thut the problem of the revolution consisted in establishing everywhere the system of equalit y , or industrial rfyttne , in place ; of the feudal or military system which it bud abolished in France and Europe . The progress in ugriculture which manifested itself immediately ufter the division of national property , tho industrial impetus ufter tho lull of tho empire , the increasing interest attached wince 18 . ' { 0 by all nations , to ujconuinicnl questions , have proved that it was on the ground of political onoonotny that the efforts of the Revolution should have been made .
" This immediate and manifest oonclusion of the negative act of the 4 th of August , 1780 , was not understood by any of those who , until 1814 , - war * im interpreters .
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Sbpt . 13 , 1851 . ] «** & **»**? 877
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Sept. 13, 1851, page 877, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1900/page/17/
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