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pose , as a moral possibility , that a bad Governor-General might be appointed over India , then the people must be in the predicament that we have described—misgoverned , misrepresented , cut off from an appeal to the conquering state under whom they are subject , la not this a horrible position for 150 , 000 , 000 human beings to be placed in P It appears to us to be intolerable , and that some kind of guarantee against that position ought to be granted . One mode would be to admit the people of India to a direct representation . There is no necessity to endow them , at once , with universal suffrage ; but , at all events , let some voice of India penetrate to the ear of England .
And , while we are about reforms , it appears to us that there is one reform which might do muoh to save India and benefit England , and , perhaps , to save the aristocracy of this country /—it would be for them to restore something of gentlemanly training and bearing to their order . A spice of the old chivalrous spirit , a little more honour than the temptations to transfer their own burdens to agricultural labourers , at 7 s . or 9 s . a week ; a little more honour than to divert the patronage of India sometimes to the class of men whom we have described ; a little more honour than to use the conflict of parties , in the Houses of Parliament , as the means of damaging the Government , and reducing the standard of statesmanship still lower .
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BALLOT AND EXTENDED SUFFRAGE . 3 JOBD John Hussell would not concede the ballot , if at all , " unless every man in the country should have a vote ; " and Mr . Cobden " would not extend the suffrage to every man without the ballot . " There is a great d " eal of truth in both these positions ; but to pursue the paradox , they are more true when they are combined , and yet we hold to some extent that they neutralize each other . While the suffrage is so
limited , if it is not properly " a trust , " it is , at all events , a privilege and a power ; it may be exereised mischievously against the majority ; and the majority would have a right to rebel if , besides being an exclusive power , it has become also a secret power . It is Dad enough that the people of England should be governed by oneseventh of the English nation , and should be politically in the position of a conquered nation , having no political position or right of its own ; but it would be far worse if that fraction w £ re able to exercise its power in secrecy . We agree , therefore , practically with Lord John , although we agree with Mr . Cobden in thinking the arguments by which Lord John arrives at his
conclusions baseless . There is no doubt , also , that if you extend the ballot to poorer classes you , to some degree , extend the power of bribery or intimidation . It is curious , by the way , to observe how much the House of Commons remains at the mercy of words , and how a considerable proportion of the argumentation appeared to turn upon the alterword intimidation in
nate use of the equivocal " either one of its senses . Mr . Sidney Herbert spoke of intimidation as declining under the civilizing influences of modern times—meaning by tho word , bludgoon-intimidation . Hut under the pressure of an unsound , because artificially stimulated , credit , intimidation of another kind , through exclusive dealing , threatened loss of cusj . .. „ , ! ™ ,, i .,, far Aaht . Vina been increased t and for debthas been increased
orn , pressure , very largely , and openly used by election agents . So far , then , we agree with Mr . Cobden , that it tho franchise were extended , primd facie it would be additionally necessary to protect the vote by means of tho ballot . Nevertheless , wo are still more strongly convinced that a considerable extension of tho suffrage will carry us beyond the range of that _ class which is most subject to the dread of credit intimidation and tho more delicate kinds of bribery . Probably there is no man leas independent in his circumstances than tho small trader . To threaten his custom is to threaten his existence . Ho has manatred to avoid tho extreme of poverty , and
yet ho has always boon in tho neighbourhood ot It and thus ho has acquired tho greatest amount of dread and an enervated want of familiarity in Grappling with it . His moans are so small that a alight invasion upon them touches upon extinction his self-reliance is weak , and ho dares not aay lm houI is his own . The small farmer has been nearly in the same predicament , with the counteracting difference of a sturdier life m the
open air , and the re-counteracting effect of a less animated brain . The class that we have just described constitutes the lower margin of the unenfranchised class . If you pass beyond , you come among artisans and working men ; and here , although reactionary influences might have a large reserve amongst the uneducated agricultural labourers , you have , perhaps , excepting the gentry , the most independent class in the country . The flower of this class are men who think for themselves , who
have seen enough of adversity not to be terrorstricken at its recurrence ; who know the value of principles , who are prepared to make sacrifices , and who , in short , retain a larger proportion of that English spirit which is prepared to stand up for right through thick and thin than any other civilian class in the country . It is possible that at first this class may find the ballot a convenience , and if it wishes to vote by that means there is no reason why it should be refused the arrangement according to its own pleasure . But we do not believe that the ballot will be most
valued by this class ; on the contrary , they are to a large extent independent . The freemen already enfranchised , and exercising whatever is marketable as an exclusive privilege , have perhaps done the worst that is possible for the credit and independence of the working classes . On the whole , the ballot must be regarded as one of those questions which are not in the present year ripe for present settlement . By far the greater number of us have made up our minds that it ought to be conceded , if the people persevere in wishing it ; and no one can shut his eves to the fact that an immense majority of the
people are of that opinion . . Nevertheless , they do not press upon it with any concentrated purpose . On the other hand , many of the most influential leading men in Parliament are opposed to it . They have committed themselves so far in pledges against it , that they cannot be expected to yield except under the compulsion of necessity ; and we have not yet favoured them with that compulsion . Place a political revolver against the head of Sir James Graham , and he is too sagacious a man not to yield with a good grace , and to be glad that the matter is settled . But while we leave him with no revolver except his
own intellectual ingenuity , it will remain a point of honour with him to execute his pas seul according to hia own fancy . The question stands , however , with others of the same kind , for reconsideration next year ; and then , if the public desires to get its ballot , it must be prepared with its political revolver , to make Lord John Russell and Sir James Graham stand and deliver . They can do it very well , if we only make them try . To be consistent , if Lord John Russell give us ballot , he must give us franchise . His last Reform Bill , indeed , which graces the shelves of the Dolitical library , pledged him to such an
extension of the suffrage as would by this time have done much . It was encased , no doubt , in a wrappage of legislative nonsense , but the nonsense was perishable , and the five-pound franchise was an immortal contrivance . We must have that , if not something better ; and if we manage well , wo may reconcile Lord John Russell to tho unaccustomed process of making good his post-Reform Bill pledges . Prejudices Afrainst extension of itho franchise are fast
diminishing ; and enough has been done to convince men that tho diischievous results which they fear , could not Iby any possibility bo so largo as they look in prospect . A right which was universal would neither have the marketable nor the mischievous use that a fractional privilege has had . The franchise , at present limited to but one man in seven , is something distinctive ; no man can so readily sell that which everybody has . Again , it is a delusion to suppose that because every man had the franchise , the selection of representatives would be universally the
different from what it is now ; on contrary tho unenfranchised men are so little different from the enfranchised , that if you collect them in a crowd from any part of the country , you would find great difficulty in pointing out a voter from his countenance , stature , or other personal attributes . You may think that you would bo safe if you picked out tho worst dressed and lowest looking man in the multitude ; but it you did ton to one ho would bo a freeman , to 1 ) 0 had , if you wanted his vote , for five shillings and upwards . What a national suffrage would do , would be to give us the sentiments , not of a class , but ot
England ; and really in all classes Englishmen are so much alike—have so much the same virtues and the same faults , the same capacities and the same weaknesses—that the results would , upon the whole , be the same ; only that there would be a discontinuance of exclusion , and of political discontent on the score of that exclusion . It is political free-trade , that is all . We have learned to consider free-trade both safe and profitable . National suffrage , with the ballot , would be political free-trade , with a privilege to every man of keeping his political ledger in his own counting-house , not subject to be exposed in the market-place every year .
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REVIVAL OF THE WAGES MOVEMENT . Thebb appeared to be a species of lull in the wages movement , but it has recently revived again in greater force than ever . Some months back the trades were moving here and there , asking an advance of wages pretty generally , but in no vast numbers at a time : now there is a , strike by the thousands , and nearly all Stockport is suspended or marching in procession . Once more those who sympathize chiefly ,
if not almost exclusively , with the employing classes , are dismayed at the inroads which the claims of labour may enforce upon the capital of the country . The subject has attracted attention in several quarters ; the Tory Standard exclaims that it is the result of emigration ; and , paraphrasing Hezekiah , it cries , Woe upon them who have set house to house , and have driven the people from the land , by neglecting the interests of the humble . There is some truth in this ; for if
capitalists had been a little more provident in anticipating the demands of their work-people ; if statesmen had done a little more in anticipation of the day , by conceding political rights to the class which most values such rights ; numbers who have sought comfort and political existence in Australia and America , would have preferred to have staid at home with a far less share of either , so that it were at home . Other journals , less wedded to antiquated ideas , still view the exodus of the labouring classes not without alarm , and now that the workinjr-classes of Lancashire are
asking fqr a rise upon their comparatively high rates , capital looks grave . In _ the first place let us observe , that the present demand for wages is not unreasonable where it is pressed ; a fact which we can prove on the best testimony . Demands are urged in various places on behalf of various trades—carpenters , masons , plasterers , and others—who have obtained exactly similar advances in other places . And in a country likeEngland , so generally uniform in its condition , it is to be supposed , primd facie , that the rates which can be paid in one place can be paid in another of the same kind . If carpenters and joiners can make five shillings or more in Birmingham , they may expect not Jess in Burnley . The rates paid to dock labourers in London can be afforded
to dock labourers in Liverpool . Even where the trades are different , as in the comparison between the plumber and cotton-spinner , tho same principle holds : labour is more valuable generally ; and though the circumstances may modify tho application of the principle , it is to be presumed that the spinner has a right to some advance . Upon the whole , the present movement is not so much for an increase of wages , us for a fetehingup of wages in those places or in those trades that have not yet benefited by the advance proved to bo practicable in other places and trades . Primd facie , therefore , we say , those workingmen who me now asking for tho advance , are warranted by the evidence which is open to tho whole country ,
The special application of tins general principle may bo affected by circumstances peculiar to a place or to a trade . We have alread y told our working friends that they cannot be guilty of a more impolitic act than that of demanding higher wages than can bo afforded ;—in other words , if they ask wages so high , that aftor paying for tho coat of production , for raw materials , wages , rent , Ac , the manufacturer had
no profit to himself , or very little , it would bo to his interest to suspend his trade , or to abandon it altogether ; and then , not only would tho labourers that ho employed lose their wages , hut they being out of work , their competition would reduce wages in other employ . " We may ; i ( ld truly , that a worse effect would be produced by the fact that working men had insisted upon that which was unjust and injurious to a clam *
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June 18 , 1853 . ] T H E LEADER . 589
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), June 18, 1853, page 589, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1991/page/13/
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