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without her borders , as we approach an inevitable contest ? - Within ? ah , within , there is still , notwithstanding all our yawning miseries and crying sins of misrule , the union that makes force ; the freedom that peacefully regenerates , the forgiveness of injustice , and the fusion of divided classes in the presence of a common foe . But without ? How do we find our world-embracing colonial empire ? The arteries , as Kossuth has finely said , of our dominion , disease in all
I 3 England sound at heart , with her scattered members ? Do we find our colonial possessions united to the mother country by gratitude , affection , interest , mutual contentment ? Are they the happy outposts of our power , ready to render back with interest our generous protection , our kind and equitable administration , our aid in time of need , our enlightened and anxious vigilance ? or is it but the news which every mail proclaims trumpet-tongued , that our whole colonial empire is a running sore of disaffection and discontent ? Is it a fact that in every colony English enterprise has planted , we have a nascent enemy to England ; that official provocation has ripened into a disastrous is treasured
precedent , and American emancipation up as a contagious example ? That wherever our own offspring have set their foot , to hew out a new England under the shadow of the ancestral flag , there we find a crop of petty official exaction , of official interference , official jobbing—vexatious , inquisitorial , offensive—growing in rank luxuriance ? That the comfort and prosperity of every settlement waits on the miserable caprice , nay , on the fits of spleen and indigestion , of a feudal autocrat , bitting in a Downing-street back parlour , and trying to girdle the earth with tape ? That Rotten-row , the Clubs , and Coppock , are the nursery of colonial officials , vv * o descend , like a flight of locusts , to prey on the vitals of the infant state ?
The Times , an unexceptionable , because an independent , authority in colonial affairs , exposes the whole disease under which our colonies are labouring , with merciless precision . To the petulant vagaries of the Colonial Secretary ' s ill temper and vanity the Times ascribes " the present disastrous condition of affairs . " * ' To his mischievous meddling the outbreak of the Kafirs is solely attributable . " There , in South Africa , the colonists are first driven to the verge of rebellion by the bad faith and vexatious tyranny of the Minister ; then into an internecine struggle for very existence , hampered and bewildered , prepared for revolt , but not for defence .
So alarming is the position of affairs , that the Home Government " talk of five fresh regiments in addition to the ten either on their way to , or serving in South Africa . " We are in the thick of a harassing and impracticable war , of which it is impossible to see the termination ; but which must be terminated at whatever cost , in the final and complete subjugation of the savage tribes , at the risk of seeing the whole colony devoured . But it is not the Cape alone that testifies to the virtues of Family Government . Lord Grey touches nothing that he does not wither . It is the same system in all our Colonies , so long crying out for , and so long deprived of self-government .
The secret of the whole evil is contained in the following statement of the Times .- — " A colony at present is considered by every Administration a patronage preserve . Self-governed , it would cease to be a subject of interest in Downing-street . " Canada is at zero in Downing-street , " simply because now Canadians / ill a large proportion of the offices in their own Government , which consequently affords but a small harvest of patronage to the Administration here . " To such a point has the corrupt disinclination to grant self-government reached , that " every improvement is steadily resisted , and every shift is resorted to , every mischief recklessly braved , in order to continue the mischievous power of oih ' cial
patronage ' Hut not to the Colonial-office alone is the blame . " The apathy of the public and of Parliament" in the intervals of peace and quietness gives oflicial incapacity and corruption a full swing . There may be and " is discontent , indeed , in all ' our colonial possessions , " and at Jill times ; " but until we are called upon to pay for some catastrophe , or to sink a paltry surplus in a " little wur , " we do not cry out ; and even then it is only a cry , and not a decisive interference . If our colonial empire is not to dwindle away , we must apply the searching remedy of eelf-govcrnmcnt
to all . For ( says the Times ) " the rule that is good for Sydney is good also for New Zealand and the Cape . The men who have founded the colony of South Australia are of the same race , have the same education , habits ,, thoughts , and feeHqgs ^ e th ose who established Port Phillip . The constitutions which the one set , of colonists need , the others als . o require ; and tne representative ^ constitution , th ; a would work well in , New Zealand , woul 4 ihe enqaUy
useful in South Africa . '' ; . ¦ ., . ..... -n-.-,: ,- " . i To our whole colonial system , and to all out colonies , Parliament must apply the . ^ ame ^ jrule . Better the abolition of the Colonial office ,, JMian ^ t % estrangement of our colonies . We s ^ all-. awak ^ some fine morning to find our dependencies , ' , ' fts ' . tffc . Colonial-office loves to call thein , hostile wtue ,-pendencies . ' ' . r _ . _ . . / _ .,-.,. ...... .. . < -v / ,..-Now , what a prospect is th ^ is , we 3 o not ^ ay fo , ^ a distant , but for ;; animmediate futur ^ T ^ e hour is coming when England rnav- dekp and tfte sympathy and the succour of ' all ' her , . ' clyjjdfen f .,
We shall call to them , but they w . U !( not answer ; their averted gaze will be set towards a . a . awni f ig , light- the light that once guided Waslrir ^ tpn / aM which official tyranny may kindle , but never quencJ ^
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: " ; O XT It STREET yOLK , iJ V ,- ; The labours of Henry May . hew are of national importance . Emergihg from s obscurity in < 184 £ , he was first publicly known a » one of the-staff . of ? the ! Morning Chrenicle , employed in the Home depart * ment . The honesty of his Revelations" com * passed his dismissal from that staff , since which event he has started on his own account , and unveiled the mysteries arid miseries of London Life ,
among the proletarians and prostitutes . Mr . May ^ hew in his own words is . " neither Chartist , Protectionist , Socialist , Communist , nor Copperationiatj but a mere collector of facts , endeavouring-tto . dis * cover the several phenomena of labour with a view of arriving ultimately at the laws and circumstances affecting and controlling the operation and rewards of the labourer , as well as of showing the importance of the poor and the working classes as members of the state . "
Mr . Mayhew has given us the result of his re searches in his Revelations of the state of industry throughout the country , published in the Morning Chronicle , and in his numbers on London Labour and the London Poor , which have appeared weekly since December , 1850 . These consist of a cyclopaedia of the social condition and earnings of—1 st . Those who will work . 2 . Those that cannot work . 3 . Those that will not work . The life , character , and morals of the Costermongers occupies a prominent part of the pages in these numbers ^ besides
which Mr . Mayhew has , moreover , published since July , JS 51 , weekly . numbers on the . condition of the London Prostitutes . The general result' that has hitherto accrued from hie researches , ia the discovery of the iniquities perpetrated' on working men , through the fines imposed by the slop tailors of the metropolis , the stopping systtim practised in the cabinet trade , the pence demanded ftom the sawyers for the use of their tools , and other infamies , showing the necessity of a protective Act of Parliament .
Another result is the discovery of the hcatheniah condition of the London costermongers and other street folk , showing that they form a dangerous class , and that something must be done to raiso them . Another result is what Mr . Mayhew himself styles " the prodigious shortcomings and jumbling of Political Economy , the dogmas of which are
enunciated with the same confidence as jf they were matters of Revelation , constituting as it were the Bible of Selfishness , the Gospel preached by Mammon , giving us the last now commandment , * Do your neighbour as your neighbour would do you , ' in contradistinction to that higher code of kindness and charity which Edinburgh reviewers and Manchester men do not heeitute now to'rank
as morbid sentimentalism . " Lastly , Mr . Mayhew ' s researches show thq continual reduction of wages in many branches of industry , necessarily resulting from the improver incntB of the age in machinery , &c , and terminating in the ruin and starvation o ( wholo uiubsch of tlio coimnuity . These results muy be summed up thus : — 1 . The present condition of lubour shown a crescendo of over work and under pay to be the lot of tho working classes in the " laissez-faire" system of society . 2 . The great want felt by the proletarian class is the protection of the workman against the tyranny
of capital , . and tho protection of female virtue , endangered 9 , 04 exposed : as long as famine is , the ra ward ofhoaestjr . ,. „ , - „ , ,. - * ¦ • ¦ . •;¦ ¦ ... ..,- . ' ^ . ¦ .. ,.. T ~ A remarij ^ ble ; feature of ; the picture * , displayed in Mayhew ' s works is the overtrain of ^ pejety ? < in it race { jftffcff , happiness and >* he j prevalence of foul play resulting fw > m th&wliceiice gl yea to ^ oempeti tiwa , whjeb ; establishes j&e oppresskraofi the weak by thevst *«> ng ! , Not that the evil is confined to any one c&sBlor Uo , be cast at any one doon Theme , chanism of > the existing ; «* ate ? , : ofi ( things evidently leads to fchjs consummation . We khow of few things theBoul than t
more stirring : to bJ »> appeal ; made to our better &e&ag « ini these startling : revelations of WAUe , SJiilv ^ y « n 4 Pr <} stUifitioa .... i ; ? , i .-: < -. i , ; ; , , Tak # ih-e unsta&oeayofkhe rpoou journeyman tailor driven ^ to . ^ ndiie ^ s-vfcir . . fear *> £ .. starvation * the shiy . eripg : tflp wer < pufe ^ coifting * , fprith with their fragrant nopegays , frprn , the h ^ up ^ s . of . corruption aridI run }; take , the , wh ^ te s&yery- . of $ he , 0 I 4 wife toiling , avvaj . ^ u patient despair to find wherewithal to , , keep /^ er . poor , ^ f ^ i ^ ep > u ^ bw 4 from then drelajdep workhouse ,, ; , tab ? , Ih ^ e multitude « , jv ; lio slave all day , and n 6 tjunfrequ , enjfly all j ^ igtt , ; to , obtain the wretched , weekly ; 4 s ., qr , 5 s . . thatscar / cely cover tHeir rent * . jr : '' ¦¦ ¦
,., , ,, ,,, ,,.,,. .,.,,,, -,-,, :, „ : ..., ifn ^ n- » v «« -y « ^'¦(¦• , ' , - - - ; -- . ! . f - . i'i ) 1 ; -- " - / , * t-iui \ -. ¦ ¦¦¦ nFqllqw ? 4 ay ^ ew wjber ^ , ^ us , loveji lo-fp , to the haunts of the publican and sinner , to the daily walks o ( . . the halt the laro . ^ , an ^ l t |^ e , jyiri ^ , Jte shows u £ ' swa ^ sf of chpren , , pV jerij ^ turely qld ,, in mind a " n $ fr M ^ &te * ¥$ * £ > tys * t ? rutah' zing drudgery , ^ ignorant of schpols ^ nd . j txhurch and Godj a heafhenish ^ eper ^ Vio ^ " in pur , mi ^ st . ; rjfe shows us tliejr amusemprits , ^ v hich . exhibit
extravagancies .. in , pbsce . nity .. rancl sensualitv , exciting tears of tau ^ hter in . ^ tKe . infant sqarc ^ ly \ able to walk aboui a | phe . ' . ^ n ' f i he § hpw& us ^ . i ^ n . ^ ler a thick ; crti ^ t of foul an < J diseased ; hum , anity , bright and pure fountains ot heroism and natural , nobleness gushing forth from the inmates of . the lazar-house , the brothel , and the gaoh ,,, , 'There ' ' .. $ o ' . le ; rnii lessonp ^ in these pages , dark with the shade ' s , of spirituai death , and yet illumined here and thefet with beams from brighter
worlds . It were well for pprtly . millowners and mellow country gentlemen to ruminate upon them over their wine , in their easy chair ,, by . thejr bright hearth , with the curtarns snugly drawn . X < et them follow the writer into the cfyily . and nightly haunts of misery and . infamy , and let them , see pn all sides overwork and" Under pay and . the principle of individualism stretched to cracking .
We are glad that the instrument of these revelations cannot be pronounced as belonging to the Socialist camp . His grand Exhibition of the flaws of our civilization is not an exparte statement . It is difficult to ' rise' frorh' a perusal of hrs o ' ages without becoming a Socialiat ; but his facts have not proceeded froin a Sb ^ iali st pen . Henry Mayhew crinriot be classed with any strongly pronounced sectitin Of ecriridmi'sfs . He has happ ily escaped frorh the exrjfiiristed receiver of antique political enrolledin the ranks f
cebnorny , arid is nftt ' yet ' o the rieiv arnVy bf rhrtrtyrs . ' He belongs to a ( neutral party , forming the centre between this gauche and droife ; and' H& sUch he was admirably calculated for the work that he has so bravely clone . We are not , however , without our hopes that one who has probed so dtejily the wounds that are ) inherent in our society , will at no distant timq ,, find . a w armer comfort than that held out by the quackeries emantfCing from the meag > e phkrmacopo 3 iabf conservative
economy and politics . : The fact that the only substantial planfi , such as mutual pen&ion Bocieties , for ailetiating the miseries of the distressed , which are advocated by Mayhew , by sundry good $ amarjtan » , an 4 , 'jiy .. thq patients themaelveB , involve , mpre or less ; the ^ principle ot association , ia a favourable puion ,. ' ^ 9 inst j nct 8 of benevoleflce and sound Reason combine with a famished exj > criencQ in pronounoting this as tne ) remedy for the ills which al ] flesh , but cBuecially pauper flesh , . is' heir to . It is our hope tnaf the despair , the ftgony , and ' the horoiHm of the poor , aa disclosed in these Revelations , will rivet the thoughts of those who have breathing time in tlie fpyer ot life , and can rest on their oiwfl to l , dpk orp > ina tUem .
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A LESSON TltOM THE LOIU > ' MAYOH / S 9 IIQW . Were there any democrats looking at the Lord Mayor ' s show on Monday f Thin is ¦' PJV ""* question . Either the whole population can be drawn forth and yet the absent democrats be eo few that they cannot be missed—or there were , m the immense concourse that withered that ancient array , good store of dcmocratB . Wo incline to the latter
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1088 JPfNP £ ! # && **? P ^ ESA ^ wto ^
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Nov. 15, 1851, page 1088, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1909/page/12/
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