Sketches of Reforms and Reformers, of Great Britain and Ireland Part 13

MR. VILLIERS was the Free-Trade leader in Parliament till Cobden appeared; and, indeed, on account of his early services, he was called by courtesy the leader until the victory was won. His annual motion for repeal was a thermometer to measure the rise of public opinion; and his annual speech, laden with facts and arguments, converted thousands beyond the walls, if it failed to win majorities within. The multifarious learning and diligent pen of DR. BOWRING were often in requisition. A disciple of Bentham, an early advocate of Free Trade, acquainted with the commercial systems of foreign countries beyond most men, with a mind ripened by study and enlarged by extensive travel, he rendered important aid throughout the controversy. WILLIAM J. FOX, a Unitarian minister in London, a refined gentleman, a cla.s.sic scholar, an original thinker, an enlightened philanthropist, added eclat to the Drury-Lane and Covent-Garden meetings. He now represents Finsbury in Parliament.

In this summary, I must not omit the iron poet of Sheffield. Like the Ayrs.h.i.+re plowman, he sprung from the working cla.s.s. Like him, his songs are the lays of labor. But, unlike him, his muse did not draw her inspiration from the breath of the open fields, perfumed with daisies and adorned with hawthorn, but from the hot atmosphere of furnaces, ringing with the clang of anvils and the hoa.r.s.e grating of machinery.

Burns was the bard of yeomen. ELLIOTT is the bard of artisans. Both have touched the deepest chords of human feeling, and waked echoes that shall vibrate till human hearts cease to pulsate. Wandering a few years ago in the suburbs of Sheffield, my eye fell upon a building, blackened with the blackest smoke of that most somber town, whose front showed a sign running, I think, thus: "_Elliott & Co.'s Iron and Steel Warehouse._" I inquired of a young man, dressed in a frock, besmeared with iron and coal, for the head of the establishment. "My father," said he, "is just gone. You will find him at his house yonder." I repaired thither. The "Corn-Law Rhymer" stood on the threshold in his stocking feet, holding a pair of coa.r.s.e shoes in his hand. His frank "walk in" a.s.sured me I was welcome. I had just left the residence of MONTGOMERY. The transition could hardly be greater than from James Montgomery to Ebenezer Elliott.

The former was polished in his manners, exquisitely neat in his personal appearance, and his bland conversation never rose above a calm level except once, when he spoke with an indignation that years had not abated of his repeated imprisonment in York Castle, for the publication, first in verse and then in prose, of liberal and humane sentiments, which offended the Government. And now I was confronted with a burly iron-monger, rapid in speech, glowing with enthusiasm, putting and answering a dozen questions at a breath, eulogizing American republicanism and denouncing British aristocracy, throwing sarcasms at the Duke of Wellington, and anointing General Jackson with the oil of flattery, pouring out a flood of racy talk about Church Establishments, Biddle and the Bank, poetry, politics, the price of iron and the price of corn, while ever and anon he thrust his damp feet into the embers, and hung his wet shoes on the grate to dry. A much shorter interview than I enjoyed would be sufficient to prove, even if their works were forgotten, that of the two Sheffield poets, Elliott's grasp of intellect was much the stronger, his genius far the more buoyant and elastic. Yet has the milder bard done and suffered much for civil and religious liberty. But the stronger! Not corn-law repealers only, but all Britons who moisten their scanty bread with the sweat of the brow, are largely indebted to his inspiring lays for the mighty bound which the laboring mind of England has taken in our day. Some of his poems are among the rarest and purest gems that s.h.i.+ne on the sacred mount. Others are as rugged, aye, and as strong, as the iron bars in his own warehouse. They break out in denunciations of privileged tyrants and t.i.tled extortioners, with sounds like the echoes of a Hebrew prophet. The genius that animates and the humanity that warms every line, carry them where more fastidious and frigid productions would never find their way.

Elliott has been called harsh and vindictive. He may be pardoned for hating inst.i.tutions which reduce every fourth man to beggary, while a great heart beats in his bosom. Against meanness and oppression, his muse has rung out battle-songs, charged with indignation, defiance, sarcasm, and contempt; but into the ears of the lowly and wan sons of toil, it has breathed the sweetest murmurs of sympathy, consolation, and hope. The key which unlocks his harmony he has furnished in these angry lines:

"For thee, my country, thee, do I perform, Sternly, the duty of a man born free, Heedless, though a.s.s, and wolf, and venom'd worm, Shake ears and fangs, with brandished bray, at me."

It is impossible to even name a t.i.the of the men of might and genius whose public services gave energy to this conflict, and splendor to this victory. Behind these stood a host whose less conspicuous, but not less efficient labors, gave aim to that conflict and certainty to that victory. Only two will be mentioned--MR. PAULTON, the able editor of "_The League_" newspaper, who was one of the earliest actors in the enterprise, and weekly sent forth from his closet arguments which, when reterated by eloquent tongues on the rostrum, made the land echo the cry of "Cheap Bread;" and MR. GEORGE WILSON, who officiated as Chairman of the League from its creation to its extinction. Some estimate may be formed of the extent of his services by a fact stated by Mr. Cobden in his speech at the dissolution. It appeared from the official records of the League, that, during the seven years of its existence, Mr. Wilson had attended its meetings one thousand three hundred and sixty-one times, and had never received one penny for his labor. Such devotion bankrupts all eulogy.

CHAPTER XXVI.

National Debt of Great Britain--Lavish Expenditures of the Government--Its Enormous Taxes--Will the Debt be Repudiated?--Will it Occasion a Revolution?--Plan of Mr. Ricardo to pay the Debt--Mr.

Hume's Efforts at Retrenchment.

Great Britain is the richest and poorest nation of modern times. Her sea-sweeping commerce, her varied and vast manufactures, her fertile agriculture, the millions which flow into her coffers from her colonial possessions, are sufficient, were she free from debt, and her Government economically administered, to make her every son and daughter prosperous. But her huge national debt, and her immense annual expenditures, crush her laboring ma.s.ses between the upper and nether millstones of remorseless taxation and hopeless poverty. Her debt sits upon the body politic like the nightmare of Erebus, almost stopping the circulation of the vital fluids. Like other high-born bankrupts, she is proud, as well as poor. She maintains the most lavish and expensive Government in the world. Though the interest of her public debt eats out the substance of her people, and the army, the navy, and the church, cling like leeches to her monetary arteries, she annually throws away immense sums in the shape of pensions and sinecures to worn-out heroes and civilians, to generals, admirals, ex-chancellors, judges, and diplomatists, to decayed n.o.bles and knights, and every kind of t.i.tled nondescript noodle and nonent.i.ty.[12] She lavishes munificent gifts on dilapidated hospitals, schools, and charitable inst.i.tutions, whose sole recipients of the bounty are the dryer branches of n.o.ble families, with long t.i.tles and short purses, whose control over the empty establishments is a sheer sinecure. She heaps bounties on numerous squads of imbeciles, whose blood is of that pale, watery kind supposed to indicate royalty, spending, in a recent year, more than 100,000 upon the nurseries, stables, and kennels of her Majesty's babies, horses, and puppies.[13] She pays large annual tribute to her universities, that the sons of her n.o.bility and gentry may riot on good living and bad Latin. She quarters at death's door a myriad army of starving paupers, that her landlords may maintain monopolies in the soil, the grain, and the game of the kingdom. Fond of fight and feathers, she hires the sons of her poor at thirteen s.h.i.+llings a month, to sail and march round the world, and bully and kill all who oppose their progress, while she keeps their fathers at home to work out the expenses at a s.h.i.+lling a day. She lays open the whole kingdom as foraging grounds for a ravenous Church Establishment, whose wardens t.i.the not only mint, anise, and c.u.mmin, but all "weightier matters;" and whose "wolves," clad in broadcloth, hunt foxes at 5,000 per year, and hire curates to look after the sheep, at 50. In a word, the pockets and patience of the larger share of British subjects are so heavily taxed by these imposts and impositions, that loyalty itself cries out in tones of vexation and agony, "Though kings can do no wrong, they have a very expensive way of doing right."

[12] A writer in a recent number of the _London Times_, says: "There are various cla.s.ses of pensions, but they all agree in this,--namely, that they are for the most part undeserved, and that the recipients do nothing for their money. There are pensions given under the pretense of supporting the peerage, in consideration of parties' circ.u.mstances, and to compensate for abolished sinecures. Others there are that may be called 'mysterious pensions,' that no man knoweth the origin of. Of the first sort, Lord Bexley's pension of 3,000_l._ is an example. This man was found unfit for the office of Chancellor of the Exchequer some years ago, and therefore was hoisted into the house of incurables. Lord Allen receives a good fat pension in consideration of his pecuniary condition.

The Honorable Jane Carr receives 1000_l._, n.o.body knows for what. But the pensions for abolished sinecures are the most flagrant. Thus Lord Ellenborough receives 7700_l._ a year as compensation for the abolished nominal office of chief clerk in the Queen's Bench!--nearly as much as the Lord Chief Justice's salary!! There are even worse than this, however. J. C. Beresford receives between 4000_l._ and 5000_l._ as compensation for the abolished sinecure of storekeeper of the Customs, Dublin! The Reverend J. Burrard receives as compensation for the abolished sinecure of searcher of the Customs, Dublin, 1100_l._ a year!"

[13] The writer in the _Times_ gives this "royal" list:--

Per ann.

The Queen eats and drinks 63,000 Ditto pocket money 60,000 Prince Albert 38,000 Queen Dowager 100,000 Natural children of William IV., about 3,000 King of Hanover 21,000 Leopold, King of the Belgians 50,000 Prince of Mecklenburgh Strelitz 2,000 His wife, the Duke of Cambridge's daughter, Augusta Caroline 3,000 The Royal Dukes and d.u.c.h.esses, about 100,000

The following are a few miscellaneous items:

The repairs to the Pimlico Palace, _estimated_ at 150,000 The Royal Yacht 20,000 Windsor Castle has cost within the present century 3,000,000 The repairs to St. James' Palace were about 30,000 Buckingham Palace, before the present repairs 34,000 The Kitchen Garden at Frogmore 23,000 George IVth's natural children have cost the country 100,000

At the accession of William and Mary, in 1689, the national debt of Great Britain was 664,000. At the close of the French war, in 1763, 138,000,000. At the close of the American war, in 1783, 250,000,000.

At the commencement of the Continental wars, in 1793, 240,000,000. At their close, in 1815, 840,000,000. Thus, it cost England 600,000,000 to put down Napoleon and restore the Bourbons. Some 40,000,000 having been paid off during the last thirty years, it now stands at 800,000,000. The population of the United Kingdom is 26 or 27,000,000.

Consequently, the average debt of each man, woman, and child, is upwards of 30, or $150. The adult male population, with such females as are independent property-holders, does not probably exceed 7,000,000. To discharge the debt, it would be necessary that these persons should pay, on an average, nearly $600. This debt may be repudiated; but can it ever be paid?

Looking only to the records, the debt is owing to some 300,000 persons.

It would seem, then, that 27,000,000 of people are enormously taxed to pay the interest on this vast debt to this small number of creditors.

The British Government is always laying anchors to windward. Forty years ago, when this debt was rapidly acc.u.mulating, it saw that if a revolution should occur, and the issue be made up between the tax-payers and the tax-receivers, the former could easily trample down a cla.s.s with whom they had no sympathy, and repudiate the debt. Accordingly, it has been the policy of the Government during these forty years to induce the middling and poorer cla.s.ses to invest money in the public funds, through the medium of savings banks, charitable inst.i.tutions, and friendly societies. Not long since, there was found to be standing in the names of the commissioners of those a.s.sociations some 25,000,000 of the public debt, belonging to about 800,000 individual depositors and 16,000 a.s.sociations--the latter representing probably 1,000,000 of people. Thus the debt is actually owing to 2,000,000 of people, three-fourths of whom are of the middling and lower orders of society--the very cla.s.s that would be likely, if any, to foment a revolution of the Government. So long as this state of things exists, it is safe to presume that the public debt of Great Britain will never be repudiated, even by revolution.

The taxes upon the people of that kingdom equal those of any other nation on earth. The annual average of direct tax paid to the Government by each man, woman, and child, exceeds 3. It is paid by less than one-fifth of the population, making about $100, on an average, for each tax-payer, rich and poor. Nearly the whole, ultimately, comes directly and indirectly from the poorer cla.s.ses, not in money solely, but in hard work, high rents, mean fare, and low wages. These taxes are levied on land, meats, drinks, gla.s.s, malt, soap, spirits, windows, servants, horses, carriages, dogs, newspapers, stamps, &c., to the last syllable of the record of human wants and uses.

Sydney Smith, in the Edinburgh Review, gives a graphic sketch of this all-pervading system of taxation. He says it involves "taxes upon every article which enters into the mouth, or covers the back, or is placed under the foot. Taxes upon everything which is pleasant to see, hear, feel, smell or taste. Taxes upon warmth, light, and locomotion. Taxes on everything on earth, and the waters under the earth; on everything which comes from abroad or is grown at home. Taxes on the raw material; taxes on every fresh value that is added to it by the industry of man. Taxes on the sauce which pampers a man's appet.i.te, and the drug that restores him to health; on the ermine which decorates the judge, and the rope which hangs the criminal; on the poor man's salt, and the rich man's spice; on the bra.s.s nails of the coffin, and the ribbons of the bride.

At bed or board, couchant or levant, we must pay. The schoolboy whips his taxed top; the beardless youth manages his taxed horse with a taxed bridle on a taxed road. The dying Englishman pours his medicine which has paid 7 per cent., into a spoon which has paid 15 per cent.; flings himself back upon his chintz bed which has paid 22 per cent.; makes his will on an eight pound stamp, and expires in the arms of an apothecary who has paid a license of a hundred pounds for the privilege of putting him to death. His whole property is, then, immediately taxed from 2 to 10 per cent. Besides the probate, large fees are demanded for burying him in the chancel; his virtues are handed down to posterity on taxed marble, and he is then gathered to his fathers, to be taxed no more."

The annual Government expenditures of Great Britain are nearly $400,000,000. The heaviest appropriation goes to pay the interest on the public debt, which requires $150,000,000. The army and navy absorb $75,000,000. There are 2,000 pensioners, who receive annually $5,000,000 or $8,000,000. The Queen and royal family get some $5,500,000 to supply the royal tables and stables, the royal babies and lap-dogs.

Full $2,000,000 go to sinecures, such as the lord groom of the stole, the lord keeper of her Majesty's buck-hounds, the lady sweeper of the Mall, the lords wine-tasters, store-keepers, and packers, not omitting the chief justices in Eyre, who have done nothing for a century, and the Duke of Wellington, who seems likely to live forever. To these governmental expenditures must be added the income of the Established Church, whose Archbishop of Canterbury, pocketing, until recently, his $100,000 per year, mourns over the modern degeneracy which gives her clergy only 42,000,000 dollars annually.[14]

[14] I have often been obliged, in this chapter, to get my statistics by striking _the average_ of a ma.s.s of contradictory authorities.

With these facts before us, we may form some estimate of the condition and prospects of the poor of a country where labor is abundant at twenty cents per day. Out on the inhuman policy which would prevent these hungry millions from emigrating to our broad American acres, which stretch westward almost to sundown, and on that remorseless policy which would exclude them from these acres, by blasting the soil with the sirocco of chattel slavery!

Should the number of public creditors in England become limited to two or three hundred thousand, its enormous debt, its immense annual expenditures, and its consequent excessive taxation, might become the occasion of a revolution of its Government. Three of the most important political revolutions of modern times are, that of England in 1644, that of America in 1775, and that of France in 1789. Each happened when an attempt was made to levy taxes upon the people, to relieve the burdens upon the national treasury. That subject is so mixed up with the first demonstrations of revolt, that, from being the mere _occasion_ of the outbreak, it has been often, if not generally, regarded as its _cause_.

But, to a.s.sign the resistance to the levying of poundage and s.h.i.+p-money by Charles I, without authority of Parliament--to a.s.sign the refusal to pay a tax on tea and paper by the American Colonies, because imposed by a legislature in which they were not represented--to a.s.sign the extraordinary a.s.sembling of the States General, by Louis XVI, to supply a treasury exhausted by the foreign wars and domestic profligacies of previous monarchs--to a.s.sign these as the causes of the mighty convulsions which immediately followed, is a.s.signing as _causes_ those _events_ which proved that the revolutions had already begun. It is referring the terrible explosion solely to the spark which ignited the train which a century had been acc.u.mulating--is mistaking the cataracts over which the popular currents fell, for the remote fountains from which they rose. The people were discontented with their Governments--they refused to contribute to their support--coercion drove them to revolt. A people ripe for revolution are apt at making up an issue with their oppressors, and seizing an occasion to smite off their chains, and are quite as likely to avail themselves of an odious tax, which reaches all cla.s.ses, as of greater outrages, which press only upon single individuals or a limited portion of the community. If England is convulsed with a revolution, it is quite as probable to be occasioned by excessive taxation as any other event.

Anxious to avert dangers, as well as to relieve burdens, the great problem which British financiers have set themselves to solve, since the peace of 1815, has been to devise some means of paying off the public debt and reducing taxation. The boldest proposition to this end was brought forward by Mr. Ricardo, a gentleman of the liberal school of politics, an Edinburgh reviewer, celebrated for his controversy with Mr.

Malthus, the writer on the laws of population and national wealth. For the ten years subsequent to the peace of 1815, the financial embarra.s.sments of England more than once drove her to the borders of national bankruptcy. Mr. Ricardo, then being a member of the Commons, proposed, as the best mode of extricating the kingdom from those embarra.s.sments, to tax its capital and property to the amount of, say 800,000,000, and pay the public debt off at once! He defended this scheme on the two-fold ground of justice and economy, contending that what a debtor owes ought always to be deducted from his property, and regarded as belonging to his creditors, and therefore should be given to them--that all estimates of the wealth of the debtor, till such deduction and payment are made, are false and delusive--that the then present generation had contracted nearly the whole of the debt, and therefore ought not to entail its payment upon posterity--and that, by immediately discharging the debt, the expense of managing it, and raising the revenue to pay the interest upon it, would be a large saving to the nation. These propositions he maintained with that vigor of reasoning, fullness of detail, and clearness of ill.u.s.tration, for which he was remarkable, and which won him a high place among the politico-economical philosophers of his time. But his scheme fell of its own weight, having few supporters except himself. It was in advance of an age which never thought of paying, but only of borrowing. Though its author did not convince the Commons of its practicability or expediency, he pretty thoroughly alarmed the capitalists and property-holders of the kingdom.

After many years of labor on the part of Mr. Vansittart, Mr. Robinson, Mr. Peel, Mr. Huskisson, and others, to _cipher_ the public debt into non-existence, the hope of ever seeing it paid off seems to have given place to despair, to be followed by apathy. No sane Englishman now looks to see it discharged till huge monopolies which oppress the industry of the country are abolished, the system of Government entirely remodeled, and its expenses cut down to the lowest point of republican simplicity and economy. To talk of paying a debt of $4,000,000,000, whose annual interest is $150,000,000, whilst $117,000,000 is annually wasted on three blotches of the body politic, the Army, the Navy, and the Church, and 40,000 men own all the land of the kingdom, and every sixth man is a pauper or a beggar, is simply an absurdity.[15]

[15] The author of the "Comic Blackstone," first published in "Punch,"

says:--"The only method of getting rid of the debt would be for the sovereign to file a pet.i.tion at the Insolvent Court in the name of the nation, and solemnly take the benefit of the act, in the presence of the fund-holders." About eighteen months since, Professor Newman, of the London University, published an able pamphlet, proposing that the interest on the debt should be paid for sixty years longer, after which it should cease. There is a growing disposition in England to get rid of the debt by some other mode than payment.

Taking this view of the subject, the radical reformers of England have struck at the root of the evil--a remodeling of the inst.i.tutions of the State; and, in the departments of finance and taxation, have confined their efforts chiefly to the work of retrenching the Government expenditures. Foremost among these, and especially in the latter field, has stood the robust JOSEPH HUME. According to the forms of the British Const.i.tution, the annual appropriations for the supply of the bottomless gulf of expenditure must take their rise in the House of Commons. And there, before they commence their line of march to that bourne whence no s.h.i.+lling returns, they have to encounter the severe scrutiny and determined opposition of clear-headed, honest-hearted, open-mouthed Joseph Hume. He contests all money-bills item by item, fastening upon them like a mastiff upon a gorged bullock.

I was listening, a few years ago, to a debate in the House of Commons on the civil list. Lord Stanley (then a member) had just closed an impetuous speech, when a broad-shouldered, rather rough-looking man, rose, and deliberately taking off his hat, which seemed to be filled with papers, commenced marshaling lazy sentences, under the command of bad rhetoric, to the music of a harsh voice. A pile of parliamentary doc.u.ments lay on the seat by his side, and he held a bit of paper in his hand, covered with figures. My friend informed me it was Mr. Hume.

He realized the portrait my mind's eye had drawn of the man who, by dint of tireless ciphering, had convinced the ma.s.ses of England that they were the mere working animals of the privileged orders. His brief, plain speech was aimed at some measure supported by Stanley, by which the people were to be cheated out of a few thousand pounds, to pamper some t.i.tled feeder at the public crib. Stanley was racy and flowery. Hume's speech resembled his lords.h.i.+p's as little as Euclid's problems do Milton's Paradise Lost. He explained the figures on his paper, and drove the digits into Stanley by a few well-directed blows at "treasury leeches," and sat down. Mr. Hume is a walking bundle of political statistics. No other man will so patiently pursue a falsehood or a false estimate or account, through a wide waste of Parliamentary doc.u.ments, till he drives it into the sunlight of open exposure, as he. But as to eloquence, he knows no more about it than a table of logarithms. He rarely makes a speech that does not contain a good deal of bad rhetoric, and an equal amount of arithmetical calculations. Entering Parliament thirty years ago, he immediately placed himself at the door of the national treasury, which he has ever since watched with the dogged vigilance of a Cerberus. He has been the evil genius of Chancellors of the Exchequer, worrying them more than the national debt or the public creditors; whilst sinecurists, pensioners, and fat bishops, have received an annual Parliamentary roasting at his hands. Delving among the corruptions of Church and State, he has laid bare the slimy creatures that fatten on the roots of those inst.i.tutions, and suck out their healthful nourishment. Bringing every proposed expenditure of money to the test of utility and the multiplication table, he has opened his budget of statistics, night after night, and measured off columns of d.a.m.ning figures by the yard and the hour, contesting the sum totals and the details of the appropriation bills, backed sometimes by the whole force of the liberal party, often sustained by only a few radical followers, and not infrequently left wholly alone. Of course, he is occasionally felt to be a bore. But nothing deters him from pursuing the line he has marked out. Sarcasm is lost upon him. Wit he despises.

Threats have no terrors for him. Abuse only rebounds in the face of his a.s.sailant. The House may try to sc.r.a.pe or cough him down--Lord John Russell's reproaches may salute his ears--Sibthorpe's clumsy abuse may fall on his head--Stanley's fiery shafts may quiver in his flesh--Peel may shower contempt upon him--but there stands clear-headed, honest-hearted, unawed Joseph Hume, entrenched behind a pile of Parliamentary papers, gathering up the fragments of his last night's speech, and displaying fresh columns of figures, for a renewed attack on some civil or ecclesiastical abuse, which has been hidden from everybody's sight but his, by the acc.u.mulated dust of a century. Under any other Government than one scandalously extravagant, and whose people are taxed to the last point of human endurance, such obstinacy as he has sometimes displayed, in obstructing the pa.s.sage of financial measures, would be wholly inexcusable. But every expedient which the wit or pertinacity of man can devise, to defeat or diminish such plundering of the ma.s.ses as he witnesses every session of Parliament, is not only tolerable, but a sacred duty. The objects of his guardian vigilance gratefully appreciate his services, knowing that no other man has done so much to expose monetary abuses, and pull gorged leeches from the national treasury, and turn them out to get their living from their native earth.

Let it not be supposed that Mr. Hume has devoted himself exclusively to exchequer budgets and appropriation bills. He has taken a leading share in all liberal measures, advocating Catholic emanc.i.p.ation, Parliamentary reform, West India abolition, and has long been an able champion of Free Trade. Nor do I mean it to be inferred from the "free and easy" style in which I have spoken of him, that he is not highly respectable, both as to talents and character. He is one of the best "working-members" of Parliament, and by constant practice and perseverance he has obtained a position amongst its able debaters. He was chosen Chairman of the Reform League, which was organized by Cobden and others, in the present House of Commons, to obtain equal representation and an enlarged suffrage, and he is the nominal if not the real leader of the present movement for Parliamentary reform.[16]

[16] Intimately a.s.sociated with the subject of this chapter, is the recent unsuccessful, but by no means abandoned movement of Mr. Cobden, to reduce the government expenditures 10,000,000 per annum. His speech on that occasion was worthy of the anti-corn-law leader. Those who know him will need no a.s.surance, that he will not give over till he has carried a far more radical measure of retrenchment. He bides his time.

CHAPTER XXVII.

Defects of the Reform Bill--Origin of Chartism--The "People's Charter" Promulgated in 1838--The Riots of 1839 and 1842--The Vengeance of the Government falls on O'Connor, Lovett, Collins, Vincent, J. B. O'Brien, and Cooper--The Nonconformist Newspaper Established by Mr. Miall--Mr. Sturge--Organization of the Complete Suffrage Union--Character of the Chartists.

The old-fas.h.i.+oned Tories declare that the Reform Bill inscribed "Ichabod" on the British Const.i.tution. Though it ushered in a better era, an experience of seventeen years has proved that power has not yet departed from the privileged few.

A few examples of its defects are given. For instance, Glasgow, with a population of 270,000, Manchester of 200,000, Birmingham of 160,000, Leeds of 130,000, were allowed two members of Parliament each; while Cricklade, with a population of 1,600, Sh.o.r.eham of 1,500, Retford of 2,400, Wenlock of 2,400, were also allowed two members each. Finsbury, Lambeth, Mary-le-bone, and Tower Hamlets, with an aggregate population of 1,100,000, had two members each, whose eight votes were balanced by the members from Huntingdon, Marlborough, Dorchester, and Truro, with an aggregate population of 12,500. The entire metropolis, with more than 2,000,000 of inhabitants, received sixteen members, whose power in the House was nullified by the sixteen members of eight boroughs, with a total population of less than 24,000. Fifteen of the princ.i.p.al cities and towns in the kingdom, containing 3,500,000 people and 160,000 electors, were allowed thirty-two representatives, while the same number was a.s.signed to twenty-seven boroughs, containing 170,000 inhabitants and 6,900 electors.

The inequalities in the distribution of the suffrage are not less striking. The number of males in the United Kingdom, of the age of twenty-one years and upward, is about 7,000,000. The number of registered electors is a little over 1,000,000. Thus, but about one-seventh of the adult males is ent.i.tled to vote. The suffrage is most unequally distributed amongst this one-seventh. The House of Commons consists of 658 members, which gives an average of full 1,500 electors to each member. But, 15 members are returned by less than 200 electors each--50 by less than 300 each--100 by less than 500 each--and so on, till careful calculations make it apparent that a clear majority of the House is returned by 200,000 electors, or one-fifth of the entire body, which body consists of only one-seventh of the adult male population.

In the distribution of members, reference was had to the supremacy of the landlord interest. Thus, South Lancas.h.i.+re, which swarms with a manufacturing population of more than 1,000,000, and has 25,000 electors, was balanced by aristocratic Lymington, with 3,300 inhabitants, and 150 electors, whom any lord can buy. West Yorks.h.i.+re, the seat of the woolen interest, with 1,200,000 people and 40,000 electors, was given the same weight in the House as any two of numerous boroughs, with a joint population of 6,000, whose 400 or 500 electors were the cowering va.s.sals of some great landed proprietor. In Lancas.h.i.+re and Yorks.h.i.+re, whose skies are blackened with the smoke of their manufactories, there is one member for every 55,000 inhabitants, while rural Rutland has one for every 9,000, and corn-growing Dorset one for every 13,000. Manchester and Salford, the center of the cotton interest, with 300,000 people, send three members, and agricultural Buckinghams.h.i.+re, with less than half that amount of population, sends eleven.[17]

[17] Entire precision has not been aimed at in the foregoing statistics, "round numbers" being sufficiently accurate for my purpose.

The usual complexion of the House is alike caused by and aggravates the evils that spring from unequal representation and partially distributed suffrage. In the House previous to the present, there were 205 members closely related to the peers of the realm; 153 officers of the army and navy; 63 placemen; and 247 patrons of church livings. Of the 658 members, there were only about 200 who had not either t.i.tle, office, place, pension, or patronage. And the same is substantially true of the present House.

These details, which might be multiplied indefinitely, will enable a very ordinary arithmetician to answer the question, which the CHARTISTS have rung in the public ear of England: "Does the Reformed House of Commons represent the people of Great Britain, and Ireland?"

The meager fruits brought forth by the Parliament elected under the reform bill, convinced a large ma.s.s of the enlightened working men, that Labor must look for relief to a radical change in the const.i.tution of the popular branch of the legislature. They agreed upon a fundamental law for Parliamentary reform, to which they gave the name of "The People's Charter." Hence their name, "Chartists." The Charter, having been adopted by large numbers of Workingmen's a.s.sociations throughout the country, was ratified and promulgated in August, 1838, by 200,000 persons of the laboring cla.s.ses, a.s.sembled from all parts of the kingdom, at Birmingham.

The outline of the Charter was mainly the work of Mr. William Lovett, a London cabinet-maker, one of G.o.d's n.o.bility. It was perfected by Messrs.