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it won't come on. And we submit that, as it is now fashioned, the British and Irish electors find the national constitution a very fairly comfortable coat for every-day use. We have got into a habit of asking ourselves whether the nation would practically gain any thing by the adoption of these long-promised schemes of parliamentary reform. Would the poor be better off? Would the rich be better off? Would the middle classes be better off? Should we have fewer taxes to pay? Would tax-paying be transformed into a pleasant diversion, if the franchise stood at six pounds instead of ten pounds? Would the government of the country be less aristocratic? Would there be less jobbery? Would there be less chance of a war with France? Would India be better governed? Would Manchester get cheaper cotton? Would the farmers get cheaper guano? Would ten shillings a-week go farther with the poor man, or ten pounds a day with the rich man? Would our personal freedom be greater? Would our liberty of speech and writing be greater? Would religious bigotry and social persecution be less? Finally, when Baron Rothschild takes his seat in Parliament, will it diminish our butchers' bills?

Let any man look over the catalogue of details in which he personally desires a practical reform, and in which the reform that he desires can be effected on principles of justice to his fellow-countrymen, and we think he will agree with us that, wherever he finds a real evil, serious and plain, he is just as likely to obtain redress from one party as from another. The whole question is one of personal ability and sincerity, and not of aristocratic or democratic principles. It is just now of the most paramount moment that our seaports, our arsenals, and our whole country, should be put in a state of perfect defence, and that we should maintain at least an equality with our next-door neighbour in our fleet and seamen. In comparison with a practical accomplishment of such an end as this, who cares for giving a member to this or that big borough, or taking away the franchise from this or that petty town? The whole spirit of jobbery and favouritism in the various departments of the State needs incessant watching, so that we may not only pay no more for the work than its market price, but really get our work well done into the bargain. But does any man with the smallest knowledge of human nature imagine that, by just bringing down the franchise and increasing the members for towns, or by any other of the details of these embryo reform bills, human nature will cease to be jobbing and favourite-loving and selfish and exclusive, up to the extremest point which cir

cumstances will allow? Have the Whigs jobbed less than the Tories? Would the Radicals job less than the Whigs? Look at your do man of business," your banker, your merchant, your tradesman, by the side of dukes, earls, squires, barristers, and bishops. Are they not all alike of the same kindred? Do they not all hold the golden maxim, that “ Charity begins at home?" and interpret it to mean that a man's first duty is to provide for himself and his connections?

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Of course there are exceptions. There are men who hate jobbing; who always do their best; who always give their patronage to the fittest applicant; who do in office just what they said ought to be done while they were out of office. But these are the exceptions. They are the noble and highminded few. And for ourselves, we confess that we do not perceive them to exist in larger proportion in any one political party than in another. We cannot comprehend how the possession of five hundred a-year and a shop makes a man a more honest and able administrator than five thousand a-year and an estate. Finsbury is not more spotless than May Fair; and if we wanted a fat place under government, we should be just as likely to get it from a furious republican as from a silken courtier, were we blest with either one or the other as an uncle, or cousin, or brother-in-law.

But then there are the non-electors,-those unhappy men, whether homeless gentlemen, or artisans not up to the tenpounds-per-annum mark, who are deprived of the inestimable blessing of voting once every four or five years for somebody of whom they know little or nothing, but whose presence in Parliament, or absence therefrom, is of such incalculable consequence to all they hold most dear. Is it, or is it not, the case that the vast bulk of the unrepresented, as they are called, do not care a rush for the privilege of voting at the present time? Where are the signs that there exists any general desire for the extension of the franchise among the mechanics and peasantry of the kingdom? No doubt, a clever popular orator might get up a demonstration in favour of reform almost any where, at any moment. But just now the whole demonstration would be strictly speaking "got up," manufactured, unreal, and representing nothing at all to be depended on. In truth, the vast multitude cares mighty little for the privilege of meddling in politics, unless when pressed by some pecuniary evil which it fancies can be remedied by political changes. If the mob could be brought to believe that a pair of good shoes might be had for half-a-crown, or a tolerable cottage for ten shillings a-year, by the abolition of the whole House of Commons, the mob would be for ab

solute monarchy to a man. The fact is, that the hard-working millions have neither leisure nor heart for political speculations, unless connected with some evil of an eminently tangible and pressing nature. A man must be more or less in the position of a master or an employer, to care for much else besides the receipt of sufficient weekly or monthly wages., Religion and amusement, of course, come under another category; or rather, they appeal to a working man's interest by being of a pressing, personal, or tangible kind. But for political movements, in the sense in which they interest the middle and upper ranks, we believe that the huge multitude, which lives on wages, and does not possess capital, cares not one farthing. Their beau ideal of a lawgiver is a pleasant gentleman whom they know personally, who is a liberal master, and whom they imagine to have a hand in keeping up a state of things in which their stomachs are filled and their backs kept warm. A pyramid of quartern loaves marked "sixpence each" would be the most expressive monument of the feelings of the millions of Great Britain towards the late Sir Robert Peel.

For the present, then, we neither anticipate nor desire any marked alteration in the system on which parliamentary government has for some time past been conducted. The possession of the Treasury bench will depend upon personal qualifications more than on any abstract theories for some time to come. How long that period may be, it were foolish to speculate. It seems scarcely possible that the grand distinction which naturally divides mankind into two classes should be, for any long series of years, without its influence on a government like ours. Men will never cease to be, by temperament, age, or habit, inclined either to keep things as they are, as the least of evils, or to attempt remedies for evils as certain to work some real good. "Conservatism" and "Reform," taken apart from their connection with Toryism and Whiggism, are words which represent two undying varieties of the human race, to which most of us are more or less inclined with a very decided leaning. And as every distinct sect or party owes its origin and its organisation to some preponderating element in human nature, so it seems scarcely possible that parties should not in the long-run bear the mottoes of "things as they are," and "things as they ought to be." But when or how a reconstruction of party, as founded on principle, is to take place in the imperial legislature, it requires a clearer prophetic power than we can pretend to in order to foresee.

What we look to meanwhile, as the practical substitute for the old principles now decayed, is the dear and equally old

principle which divides mankind into the "ins" and the "outs.” Let us rest comfortably in our beds, in the assurance that we shall never want the blessing of a hearty parliamentary "Opposition." Is not meum and tuum the motive-power of all humanity, in every age, and every rank, and every clime? So long as certain seats in the houses of debate indicate the possession of so many thousands a-year, and such and such honours and patronage, sweet shall be the prospect of sitting thereon to every eye doomed for the time to gaze wistfully at them from Opposition benches:

"Not showers to lark so pleasing,

Not sunshine to the bee,
Not sleep to toil so easing,

As those dear seats to me."

And inasmuch as there is but one way to the enjoyment of the pleasures of office, namely, the critical dissection of the conduct of the men in place, never will the holders of power be safe from the attacks of those who are debarred from its enjoyment. To these instinctive assaults, then, we look, as certain to keep the parliamentary machine at work, notwithstanding the disruption of the old ties. And the longer these assaults can be carried on upon the principle that what the nation wants is to have her work done thoroughly well, the better will it be for the nation herself and for all parties and individuals within her.

THE INFLUENCE OF CATHOLICS IN ENGLAND.

FOR every Catholic in Great Britain there are about twenty persons of other religions, mostly bitterly hostile to the Church. We Catholics do not form a compact body, but are scattered by twos and threes through the mass of the population. The localities where we are gathered together in numbers are not those which have among Protestants the best reputation for quietness, obedience to law, or sobriety. As a body, we have no particular function in the state, on 'change, or in literature; if we have any monopoly, it is, alas, that of hodmen and orangehawkers. In Great Britain our body is in the position of a sect, and of a sect not to be compared in strength or activity with any of the great " denominations" of dissenters.

Moreover we are, or were till lately, in the position of a dwindling sect. Take away Irish immigration, and what kind of a show should we make even with our recent accessions?

Then, compare our present statistics with those of former years. In 1582 the result of one razzia was the discovery of fifty thousand recusants. In 1602 the Bishop of London wrote to Robert Cecil that there were one hundred thousand recusants (he meant men capable of bearing arms) in England, and that all Wales and Lancashire were Catholic.* In 1612 our fines amounted to 371,060. About the same time Sir Edwin Sandys declared that there were more priests sent annually from our seminaries abroad than there were ministers from Oxford and Cambridge. Even in the first quarter of the last century, we find the following calculation of our numbers and wealth. The paper from which we quote is headed The Present State of Popery, and it was written about year 1720:

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"In the year 1688, according to a calculation delivered to King James II. on the 3d of May, it appears that there were no more than 13,656 Papists (I suppose men that were housekeepers and able to bear arms); which perchance was very short of the real numbers, and so reported out of a political view to allay the fears of Protestants, then justly apprehended from a Popish king. Yet if we consider that the Papists in the year 1718 registered upwards of three thousand estates, their continual generation amongst themselves, their indefatigable zeal and industry in making converts, and particularly their intermarriages with Protestants, in which they always stipulate that one half of their offspring shall be educated in the Romish religion, and in consequence in detestation of our Church and rebellion to our State, we must look upon that party to have been greatly increased under the late mild administrations, and to be in a condition at some time to oppose those laws which now they dare outface and trample upon. Especially if we survey their great wealth and credit. For though in the year 1718 they neither set forth their estates in demesne, or lands unlet and in their own possession, nor the great fines of their manors, nor their money in foreign banks, nor what they have lent upon mortgages, they amounted to 413,2347. per annum; so that if we could add all they secreted they must arise to at least 1,500,000l. per annum.'

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Up to the middle of last century, though we were a minority of the English people, and though the majority oppressed and insulted us in every possible way, yet we were a body, if not continually increasing, at least always making up for the defections of families by an "indefatigable zeal and industry in making converts," and through persecution and penal laws holding our own, if not growing stronger year by year: but in the latter half of the century, when the principles of the French Revolution began to leaven men's

State-Paper Office.

† British Museum, Ayscough Catalogue, Ms. 4459, art. 15.

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