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lihrnittrt.
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ligious disputations , having Tespect for the rionest r . nd 6 in' -ere opinions of men of every creed and every faith . Their motto is : — 'Do unto others as you ¦ would that others should do unto you . ' " Place of meeting , Large-room , Temperance Coffee-house , Irwell-street , Salford , every Sunday evening at six o ' clock . *' In Pendleton , another of the numerous suburban townships of Manchester , there is a joint-stopk association , with sixty looms at work , the Whitlane Weaving Company , in which a portion only of the operatives employed are shareholders , having
a voice in the management . This association was established on the 28 th of December , 1850 , in consequence of a " strike" which took piace m the extensive mills of Sir Elkanah Armitage in Pendleton : the operatives asserting that their wages were lower , the masters , that they were " not inferior to any paid in the cotton trade . " It is , in reality , the UNEMPLOYED WHO DETERMINE THE RATE OP wages ; but the daily improvement in machinery , or rather the substitution of machines for men , white it diminishes the necessity for manual strength ,
skill , and labour , at the same time increases the ranks of those " determine the rate of wages /' If a master , for instance , who employs one hundred operatives in some manufacturing process , purchase or invent a machine which will perform the labour of fifty of them , he is at once enabkd to discharge these fifty operatives , who are thus driven into the ranks of " the unemployed , who determine the rate of wages ; " , by the inexorable law of competition , must perforce beat down the wages of the other fifty . So that the master , not merely takes the whole profit arising from the difference between the cost of labour of fifty operatives and the cost of labour of a fifty-man machine power , but he also takes the sum
of thereduction in wages of the fifty operatives whom he still continues to employ : until his profits also be reduced by the competition of other machines , i . e ., capital , or accumulated labour . Yet the political oeconornists still continue to assert that under the competitive system the interests of the employed and the employers are identical—the sordid money profit interests , by no means to be confounded with the true moral and social interests of the whole community , which must sympathize more or less acutely , consciously or unconsciously , with the sufferings of each one of its members ; with the dying curse of the starving Irish peasant , and with the final exit of " the first gentleman of Europe , " whose funeral was celebrated in London by a general holiday .
I must postpone , till next week , the first halfyearly report of the Whit-lane Weaving Company . William Coningham . Julian , the Apostate . —Julian , the apostate , was a type of this party . Ho , too , had his retrograde philosophy which nourished itself upon the Past . He thought that the Myths of Paganism were capable of answering all those moral needs which Christianity came to answer ; and he insisted that his subjects should accept them , believe them , live by them . It
never occurred to him that , if the garments still fitted men , they would not have been cast aside ; and that , if nun had outgrown them , it was evidence of the garments being no longer suitable . It was in vain he proclaimed the Christians < % as £ ei £ and < x $ eot , because they would not believe in the antique god 6—those gods * ' under whom , millions had been happy . " ChriHliumty was not to be set aside by royal edicts ; it answered to the moral needs ; the antique gods were broken in th « ir templet ) , and the nations gathered round the new Teacher . — Brit . Q . Rev . No . 28 . 1 ' kack and War . — We nre not inobservant of the
talk of many of our " Peace Society ' friends . Hut in our grave judgment the tendencies not u little of that talk are anything but wise , anything but humane . We have a deep horror of war—of the war which destroy « by the sword . But we have a deepi r horror utill of the war that , destroys by tho innny thousand foriUH of lingering death that are over taking place beneath the dark wings of the demon of absolutism . To < li <; in tho battle-field may be terrible—to < Jie i" » « he night , and lonclinonfi , and foulness of the dungeon is a thouHjmd-fold more terrible . We lament that thouHiuulu should prritm as Heainen or noldiers ; hut we lament with a Hadder
grief that millions should be dwarfed jn mind , corrupted in heart , thrust down from their place ;\ h men , to be used up as ho much mere material -and all that u curtain family may rule , or that some chance possessor of power mny continue to possosH it . Absolutism is the Upas tree of mind . It inverts every principle of morals . It known nothing of religion except as an engine of htate . Man ceases to be man as subject to its pretwure . Wo have no wish to see tho world lit the bidding of such masters . The cost must be great that phould not be freely incurred to place it in lar other bands . To bear with absolutism , wherever it can bo put down , ia to bo jttlflo to humanity and to God . —Ibid .
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Beautifully and profoundly was it said by the great Turgot , that no virtue could dispense with justice— "Aucune vertu , dans quelque sensqu ' oti prenne « e mot , ne dispense < te ia justice" —and yet howcemstantly injustice ia committed in the " cause " of virtue 1 Were at not for the atheistic jesuistry of ** doing evil that good may come * ' and of ** lying
for God , " how otherwise could be explained the terrible fact that preachers of a Gospel of Love , Charity , and Truth , should so shamelessly resort to the weapons of Malignity , Uncharitableness * and Falsehood ? How is it that the orthodox polemic can justify to himself proceedure such as his heterodox opponent would indignantly disclaim ?
An example lies before us . The Guardian and the Church and State Gazette have commenced warfare with the header * and commenced in a spirit which we own pains us—pains as on far other thaa personal grounds . To such an organ as the Church and State Gazette we cannot wen award the dignity of contempt ; the Guardian is , both by position and character , an enemy whom we would fain combat with the courtesy of respect . But what are the facts of t he present case ? In a recent number of
this journal , among the reports of the news , there appeared the report of a funeral oration delivered by Mr . Holyoakk over the grave of Emma Maktin . Observe , it was a report , not an article written for our journal . It took its place among various other reports of current events , occupying precisely the same position which a report of a papal aggression meeting or a Bible society meeting would occupy . It was introduced by these words c" In the current discussions on reformations
affecting women , the public will learn with regret the decease of one able to have made valuable contributions to such a question . " We also stated that " it will be news to many classes that such things are thought and said in this metropolis " as those in Mr . Holyoakk ' s oration . To furnish such reports was obviously our duty as journalists . Mere difference of opinion , however extreme , has never excluded anything from our columns : men of all parlies have written in them , opinions o { all shades have found free utterance ; we have permitted our correspondents to attack our opinions vehemently ,
cogently . Freedom has been our watchword , and it has gained us friends in all direction **—among Catholics , High Church , Low Church , Nonconformists , Unitarians , Sceptics ; the English Review , the Edinburgh Review , the Dublin Review , the North British Review , the British Quarterly Review , and Tait—all assuredly above suspicion of complicity with our views , —have quoted and mentioned us with respect : we say it to their honour . And the cause of this has been that the pubho has felt that we were performing a just and honourable part in giving publicity to all opinions while unequivocally setting forth our own .
The Church and State Gazette fastens upon the report just mentioned , and without hinting that it is taken from our news department , says , after describing Emma Martin , " Such is the sort of woman that the Leader deems nt for thecrisia in which society is now supposed to be plunged . ** It then declarcH that tho writers in « tich a paper deserve to be held up to public notice , and , accordingly , it " inhbeta " some of our contributors . The Guardian ,
although in a more gentlemanly style , does the name thing . Now , wo appeal to any conscience , however obtuse , we appeal even to the Church and State Gazette , and ask what is the justice of such a charge ? Why , when our own opinions arc Htatcd ho frankly , have recoutHe to auoh disreputable Htibterfuges as taking a news article for the point of attack ? Why endeavour by danturdly and dirty ineaim to hurt the reputation of the distinguished men who hav « availed themselves of our tolerance of variety in opinion to enlighten und
amuse oar readers , by gibbeting * them as sntu porters of views which they would repudiate ? We have studiously abstained from paper war . fare . Our combats have , been with principles . If our antagonists insist upon it , war they shall have and to the knife 1
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Apropos of war , in the last North British Review there is a long and curious history of the Peace Congress , said to he by Sir David Buewster We must say , however , that whatever force other arguments may have , the religious argumen t is singularly weak in this question . " « Thou shalt not kill / stands a law without exception in the statute book of Heaven ; and the Creator , who made of one blood all the nations of the universe has nowhere given txpt&ss permission to the
creature to appropriate a single drop of the lifegiving unity . " How is this Reconciled with the very title of Jehovah as Lord of Hosts , with the great warlike spirit of the magnificent David , and with two thirds ef the Bible ? How does it accord with that one striking and universal fact of incessant warfare in the ttfeatkm , all life supported by other life , all organisms living on the destruction of other organisms , and man himself in the savage state spontaneously killing and devouring his Fellow ?
It is quite true that Humanity says , " Thou shaft not kill ; ' * true that Religion says so most emp ha ^ tically 5 but it is not true that the Bible says so in the sense of forbidding wet ; and our early prelates were not ill-placed among the leaders of warlike expeditions . But times change , and bring their changes with them : our ideal is not now of universal conquest , but of universal brotherhood j and Peace is the aspiration of the foremost minds ,- — not the Peace of servitude , not the Peace which shuts its eye to wrong , but the Peace which springs up from universal conviction of its efficacy .
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Complaints of literary piracy are as old as Martial , who sighs to think that the Gauls are delighting in la ' s verses , and he none the richer for it" Dicitur et nostros cantare Britannia versus . Quid prodest ? nescit sacculus ista meus . " A sigh which many a French and English author heaves when he casts his eye on Brussels or America . But as there is no cause however bad
which cannot find a Church and State Gazette , the Brussels pirates have found an advocate in the writer of a small volume , La Reitnpression . He affixes an epigraph which , while it exquisitely characterizes the book , has at the same time an agreeable audacity quite amusing . " Literary property is not property : la propridte litteraire n ' est pas une propridte . " In other words , literary dishonesty is not dishonest : a maxim which we offer to the
Church and State Gazette . The advocate is very strong in philanthropic considerations ; he objects to copyright as a " monopoly "—the poor , he says , are thereby deprived of good books ; but he forgets to add that they are also deprived of pines , porcelain , carriages , yachte , and opera boxes . He objects to the term piracy—contrefagon ; ho says Jt is a branch of " useful industry , " ought to bo called Reprinting ; and after explaining the advantages of that industry , naively adds , En Belyique , ces verites sont depuis longtemps
comprises / Among the new works we hasten to announce one from Guixov , with tho promising tale « t Meditations et Etudes morales ; a novel'by Uio Countess D'Orhay , called L'Ombre du Bonheur ; and an important work by ( JioiikRTI , Di r •«<*««* - mento civile d * Italia , the lir » t part being devoted
to the Errors und Schemes oi the day ; the KcoonU to Remedies mid Hopen . To those who love puie literature we know not what more agreeable volume to recommend than the one just issued of « AIN UKUvai ' B Canseries du Lundi . It oontamfl « omo of the best portrait * he h «« ever drawn j and * charming gallery they make . Wo pa « H from IUbk-,. aih to VAUVENA . iGUEH . fro . n the Due £ »* " £ 81 Mon to Fbkukbick the CJreat , from Did **®*
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Critics fere not the legislators , but the -judges and polkj « ofiiterabure . They do not make laws—they interpret and try . to enforce them . — Edinburgh Meview .
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Leader (1850-1860), Nov. 15, 1851, page 1090, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1909/page/14/
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