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— .-= second time raises its insane and immoral song of triumph at the threatened war , and exults in the possibility of the French army passing next winter in London ! We do not believe that the Nation speaks the thought of the mass of the Irish people—most certainly not of the real democracy of Ireland RfiftOTm i " . imf » TiJlSPQ if < 3 inoonn n-nA ivti-mn —~ 1 „ .. „ — -. 1 ? i n .
They hate the English Government , for they have suffered by that government , and have not we also ? but they cannot hate the English people , who seek freedom for England and for Ireland too . If we thought otherwise , we would say to them as we say to the Nation , and to those whose opinion it expresses : That People who can desire the destruction OP THE NATIONALITY OP ANOTHER IS ITSELF UNWORTHY TO BECOME A NATION .
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THE NECESSITY OF PROGRESS . After all the hindrances , defeats , and dangers which have been inflicted upon the advocates of Reform , few would adhere to the cause of the people , were it not that they have an instinctive faith in the certainty of ultimate Progress . Perhaps they may sometimes be unable to reason to the conclusion ; possibly it may often be a blind presentiment ; but whatever form it assumes , whatever name it may properly be called by , there it is rooted in the breasts of
thousands . All beliefs tend to their own realization when that is possible , and so will this one . No cause ever yet failed when those who upheld it were animated by this spirit . Such a faith gives vitality to opinion , and renders it indestructible . Only imbue a man or a party of men with a thorough conviction that ultimately their end will be attained , and they will never cease to strive . Beaten back here , discomfited there , overthrown at another point , they will rally and advance
again . Look at every recognized party in the state and say which of them has that faith in itself , and its principles which is the very essence of political existence ? They are all like ships driving in a strange channel , unable to arrest their progress , and ignorant of the existence of a harbour of refuge . One by one they let go their anchors , —anchors of sanitary reform , of law reform , of poor law reform , o f rating reform , o f small
suflrage reform * , but ever surely , the current that sets steadily in one direction drifts them on they know not where . Glance first at the position of the Tories , once not only the strongest party in the state , but more than a moiety of the whole legislative power . When they were in the heyday of strength they dared not withhold Catholic Emancipation . A little later on , they had to suffer the Reform Bill , which gave power to the middle class , to be passed . At a subsequent
period , the most politic and far-seeing man among them gave up that Corn law which they looked upon as the key-stone of their territorial power , and delivered them , bound hand and foot , into the hands of their enemies . Now that they are resusitated into a government , whatis their chance ? what do thev themselves feel it to be ? If they have a mission , it is
that which their chief in the House of Lords has proclaimed to stop the progress of Democracy , but however ignorant of what Democracy is the Earl of Derby may be , their leader of the lower House—a renegade radical , a plebeian by birth , and a writer of books which shew some knowledge of the people and their feelings , is better informed ; and it is said that even now the men who are to serve under his banner are
distrustful of his guidance . But they must either follow him or give up the battle—either fight at the risk of being betrayed or fly ; for Disraeli once lost , or converted into an enemy , there is not another man capable of assuming the command . It is a sad strait for a party , which has ruled with absolute sway , to be dependent upon a descendant of a race which they systematically exclude from a share in the Legislature ; but it is sadder for them to feel that the offspring of the despised Jew
is , while saving them from present rum , committing them to future destruction . The Tories feel that they are making their last effort , and that gives them the energy of despair . Just as a dying man , wrestling with the shadow which clings round him , clutches at the ebbing remnant of life with the force of a giant , so dying Toryism rouses itself , and when its grasp of the present is at the tightest , the film comes thicker over its eyes , and what was once a living organization is
passing to corruption . Of the Conservative Peelites it is almost needless to speak , for they can scarcely be called a party . If Sir Robert Peel had lived , they might have grown into one , but his death throes were theirs also . They are simply gr abs which ,
aspiring to become butterflies , have begun , but been unable to complete the change . We have seen somewhere the picture of a wretch suspended by a cracking branch , over a precipice , unable to obtain a footing , and afraid to take the plunge . That is the position of the Conservative party , which , unless as a make-weight , will count for nothing in future
legislation . What of the Whigs ? Have they any greater faith than the others in their creed , and the possibility of maintaining it ? We think not . Men without a settled faith gain or lose confidence in the future , in accordance with their experience of the past ; and the Whig history of the last twenty years , although it may look bright upon the surface , is , in truth , little better than a history of reverses . The Whigs passed the Reform Bill . Their leader declared that to be a final
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measure . That was to bo the crowning triumph of the liberties of the people . So said Lord John Russell . Twenty years pass , and the finality is a dream . That bill was to coming Reform like the preface to the book , or the prologue to the play , or the introduction to the overture . It was but the key note of the growing chorus . But the Whigs meant it . ^ nal- Yet now they b abble about another s ett em ent which is to be more final , and yet short of complete ,
Passing from the Reform Bill and its sequel , most men remember what happened with regard to the Corn Laws . The Whigs , by the mouth of Lord Melbourne , declared that he who thought of Free Trade in corn was little better than a madman . A few short years , and we find them willing to give up the sliding scale for a fixed duty , and shortly afterwards endeavouring to ontstrip Sir Robert Peel , by joining the cry for the abolition of all duty . Since then , review their
conduct during their last term of office , and it illustrates incapability striving hard to effect a compromise between the possible and the proper , and failing in all its attempts . Failing to make budgets , failing to govern colonies , failing even m that lowest art of government—the making of parliamentary majorities . What faith or hope can a faction have which has eschewed right , and been baffled in the attempt to be expedient .
The Manchester School ! The hard-headed political economists . The alchemists of modern times , occupied in transmuting everything into gold . The men who would fain persuade the world that the curse of Midas was a blessing . Who would restrict Suffrage to property , the difference between them and others being the amount of the property . Who would put a qualification at £ 5 instead of
£ 10 . We have not space now to do justice to this class ; suffice it for the present to say that they are not yet a party capable of governing the state . They have neither traditions , organizations , nor a faith worth having . Yet they are more formidable than all parties , because they have a defined purpose , business habits , energy and talent , and because they have equal will with Lord Derby to resist the true idea of democracy .
But above all , is the necessity of continual motion till the end . A law as imperative as that which whirls systems around the sun , and causes the tides to ebb and flow , rules all parties . This makes progress inevitable . This does not depend on this man or that , or on this party or that . It takes no heed of the weakness of expedients , or the imbecility of compromises . Like time , destined to crumble alike the
masslveness of St . Paul ' s , and the delicate tracery of Westminster Abbey , it confounds the loss liberalism of Disraeli , and the more of Cobden , in a common destruction . It makes final reforms temporary , and will make tliciv successors as transitory . It is this necessity which politicians spend their lives in trying to escape—which merges all the politics of faction , in the great demands of the entire people . That it is which
will not suffer tho State machine to work without continual enlargement—which is always saying there is a wheel wanting here or a cog there , and which makes the supply of every recognized defect the reason for perceiving a new and yet more serious deficiency . This is the law constantly operating , in which the advocates of democracy have faith , and which their adversaries believe in too , but as the devils were said to believe—with trembling .
les , progress onward is a necessity inscribed upon the past , and heralded by the present—working itself out through tho opposition of Derbys , the expediences of Russells , and the calculations of Cobdcns . There is no question as to its certainty , but only as to its modo and time of action , and the decision of the problem rests no longer with the high few , but with the humble many .
Reformers , it is now worth while to bo thinking agents , instead of blind instruments . Is it good to slide into change through suffering , or make it by effort ? If you think as we do—if you believe as those who have hope and faith in good —if you would make the birth of the inevitable easy and painless , rouse yourselves from your apathy , and help us to make a real People ' s Party .
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THE AGE OF SHAM .
We are told that Humanity has passed through a Golden Age , and an age of Iron . Doubtless , we are now in the age of Brass . It is as near as we can calculate about the meridian of the Day of Pentecost in the world of Flunkeydom , and the Millenium of Sham ! Humbug rides royally omnipotent , among its myriad worshippers , who sing its praises continually . We smile scornfully when we read of the mean artifices of the poet Pope , to keep his name in the mouth of the public , and how ho worked the oracle of contemporary fame .
We are disgusted when told of the trickery of that king who was wont to delight his courtly audience with his exquisite performance on the cremona , having some skilled performer behind the scenes to play all the hard passages , and elicit the cheers . Both these " illustrious examples" fail to adequately illustrate the present state of things . Society has faith in nothing but Sham ; no faith in Humanity , no love for earnestness , no reverence for Heroism . It matters nothing whether you are truthful and honest , you have but to seem so , which is tolerably easy . Nearly every man carries on a kind of Afri-
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can trade in glass-beads and pinch-beck ; the only apprenticeship necessary to the business being in learning how to electro-biologize his neighbours into the belief that the fabricated wares are genuine gems , and real gold . There is hardly any thing real amongst us , it is all hypocritical seeming and miserable imposture . The present position of society is as great a sham as the contortions of that cripple by the wayside , who earns his livelihood by the exhibition of
mockagony and as with him , constant practise has rendered the deception perfect . Simulation has usurped the place of being . Tmse and lacquer , are made to look as rich and real as gold . Devils-dust and shoddy , are made to eclipse fine wool- ; and rogues and charlatans , put on a polish whose lustre outshines all honesty , plain truth , and simple merit . Perhaps one of the most powerful instruments of humbug is the press , and one of the completed shams is advertising . You read the record of a book , which contains an eloquent tribute to the author s Miltonic or Homeric genius , and which tribute seems
to have burst spontaneously and irrcsistably from the writer ' s heart-nothing of the kind ; the writer is the most intimate friend of the author , and tho vigour of that puff was derived from a pull at his claret . We should say that the press is the great mint for smashing , and strikes off more counterfeit com than all the monetary smashers put together . It will
puff , paragraph , and laud a man into everything , no matter what he may be , so long as he possesses the money and the wit to advertise ! As Mr . Coppock , the electioneering agent will take down the electoral map of England , and laying his imger on every given borough or shire , ensure it to his client , on the payment of a certain sum , so will the charlatans of the
press take the map of Fame , and apportion out the desired high-place of immortality to any aspirant for a given fee . Books are reviewed into the twelfth edition . The public is bamboozled into the belief that the most illustrious obscures are luminous stars in the literary heavens . As a sample of the meaner quackery , though not the lesser sham , we will take the case of Du Barry and Co ., the noble and humane philanthrophists , who have been all the way to Africa to cultivate what they term " RevalentaArabica , " and all for the good of the public , of course ! They send us their
advertisement containing some thousand cases of cure of all kinds of diseases , known and unknown , which we ( for a given sum ) arc expected to palm upon our readers ; in addition to which , they demand insertion for paragraphs of their own concoction , which are to come as from us ( the editors of this paper ); and thus we are expected to deceive the public . We decline your offer , gentlemen ,- once and for all , we set our faces against such an abominable system of cajolery and fraud . More
secrets of the prison-house" we can and will reveal at some future time . Meanwhile , who would not welcome the besom of revolution to sweep the world ' s threshing floor , once again , for a chance of winnowing the chaff from the grain , and developing some real earnest life ? We could rejoice in any change that would tend to tear down this hateful , grinning mask of sham , and reveal to us the face of humanity in its simple truthfulness , and natural beauty .
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THE ELEMENTS OF ASSOCIATION . We do not attempt to conceal the fact that the spread of Co-operation and its organization into a system , must be a work of time and effort . Great changes are not to be effected but by slow and gradual steps—steps often to be taken in the midst of suffering , The path of reform is neither a railroad nor a bed of flowers . It may be the one when we have levelled the inequalities of class filled up the hollows of despondency , and tunnelled through the hills of prejudice ; it may be the other when have uwiei uuii we nav Broadcast the
we sown broadcast the seeds of P-onrl ^ v e sown seeds of good . Now it is a toilsome , painful journey along the wellworn life-track of the world . Sanguine , hopeful men misled by small signs , fancy the Millenium is near at hand , just as the desert-traveller scents upon the hot wind the perfume wafted from the distant oasis , and dreamy that his journey is at an end . They dream that it is but a leap onward to the promised goal . They let the wish be father to the thought . Sympathizing with them in their hope , we cannot share in their
anticipations . We see plainly enough before us a long period of struggle and difficulty . We glance over a wide array of errors to be set right , and obstacles to be overcome . We recognize the truth that in patient , earnest , perhaps painful labour , lies our only hope of triumph . It is no light undertakin g to change a system which is the growth of ages , and has become the
habit of the world . It is no easy task to persuade those who have been educated to place their chief happiness in individual aggrandizement , that their welfare is bound up with the well-being of the whole community , it is no child ' s play to take hold of a fabric of society of which we are part , and in which we have grown , and attempt to substitute for it another . It is not less difficult to give mutual confidence to those who must
work together , if they would work at all for good . It is hard to stamp upon the minds of men who see around them colossal operations and immense wealth the importance of little things , and the efficiency of small beginnings , and perhaps hardest of all in an age of matter of fact , expediency , and political economy
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Austist 21 , 1852 . THE STAR QF FREEIm ^ ~ ' - ¦ ¦ ¦ —
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Citation
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Northern Star (1837-1852), Aug. 21, 1852, page 9, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/ns/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1692/page/9/
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