Page images
PDF
EPUB

Politics.

IS PUBLIC AGITATION ESSENTIAL TO THE ATTAINMENT OF POLITICAL REFORM?

AFFIRMATIVE ARTICLE.-I.

"The subject Many never obtain concession from the ruling Few except by making the ruling Few uneasy."-Jeremy Bentham.

POLITICAL reform has never been given, it has always been extorted. It was fancied that men, especially statesmen, had in this country become wiser; and consequently that they were likely to bestow as a right that which has too long been withheld from men-the opportunity of self-government. This dream has been rudely dissipated. Privilege is hard-fisted. Oppression loves its power and prestige. Force and fear may gain popular rights, but love of justice and generosity of feeling are too rare among the rulers of society to prompt them to widen the area of representation. From the earliest times to the recent Government defeat, all political history has been evidence that "public agitation is essential to the attainment of reform." The tenacity of power for which man is distinguished is as active in the withholding of political rights as the love of privilege is; for privilege is a sort of power. "To keep what we have, and take what we can," is a common statement of the morals of party, and it is not an unapt one. To grant a vote to another is to widen competition as well as to divide power; is to change the status quo ante, and is therefore in the eyes of the possessors of votes a vicious proceeding, demanding the utmost resistance and the longest possible opposition.

"Pressure from without" has been as yet the constant antecedent of political concessions. Indeed, this is so plain, that the absence of the pressure has been made the excuse for not granting the moderate measure of political enfranchisement which the Russell-Gladstone ministry proposed to yield. The Tory party thus homologated the affirmative of this question, and may be held as committed to the principle that "political agitation is essential to the attainment of political reform.' Patience and good sense, trust in the justice of a cause, faith in the honour, honesty, and consistency of statesmen; belief in the promises and professions of the heads of all parties that political reform was alike expedient and just, dependence upon the repeated gracious words in which reform was commended to several parliaments by the most august personage in the realm,-all go for nothing unless accompanied by agitation. Committing their cause to the press and to politicians, the people waited for justice without clamour or heat, and this very

forbearance has been made a taunt against them. The Reform Bill of 1866 has been defeated because there was no out-of-doors commotion-no public agitation.

Looking back over the history of the last fifty years or so, we find it emphatically proved that political reform is only granted when a course of determined public agitation has been persevered in for some time. Negro slavery was abolished as the result of a vigorous and long agitation; the right of public meeting, and the expression of opinions in public, has only been gained permissively by constant advocacy and determined opposition to any restrictions not absolutely required for the preservation of civil peace; the spy system was quite common in the early part of the present century, and booksellers were punished for the publication and selling of works obnoxious to the Government; but public agitation has reformed all this. In the early portion of this our own nineteenth century the Habeas Corpus Act was almost constantly liable to suspension, and the safety it was intended to afford was scarcely to be depended on. Now the suspension of that Act, even in the imminent peril of a rebellion, is looked on with jealousy and resolved on with reluctance. Could a Peterloo massacre be committed in our days, even in one of our unsettled colonies, without causing an outbreak of popular and effective zeal which would intimidate the bravest of human statesmen? Let Peterloo and Morant Bay, by their contrast, give answer. Newspapers have gained by public agitation the right to report-if it is done honestly and faithfully, without malice, guile, or vicious interest-any and every public act of public men, and all meetings; and even in opposition to the fictions of the Houses of Parliament, the reporters' gallery has become an institution. The public agitation of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, and other kindred associations, procured an improved education for the people. The public agitation of the Catholic Association gained Catholic emancipation, as a previous agitation by the Protestant Dissenters procured the repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts. Then there came the great Reform Bill legislation. This immense political reform was gained by public agitation. "Peace hath its victories as well as war;" but political reforms are not of them. The Tithe Commutation Bill and the Municipal Reform Bill were the results of public agitation. The Anti-Corn Law League was a sustained agitation, eventually crowned with deserved success, though even yet grudged by the Conservative party. Public agitation was necessary even to the passing of Post Office reform; and the attainment of the repeal of the Navigation laws. Even the institution of the Volunteer corps was attainable only by public agitation. So blinded have our rulers been that they have written it down as a law legitimately deduced from all the past history of the country, that 'public agitation is essential to political reform ;" and in regard to reform now the people of England should not spare, but agitate! agitate!! agitate!!! HANNIBAL.

66

NEGATIVE ARTICLE.-I.

I

"My own conviction with respect to all great social and religious convulsions is the extremely commonplace one that much is to be said on both sides. believe that nowhere and at no time can any such struggle take place on a large scale unless each party is contending for something which has a great deal of truth in it. Where the right is plain, honest, wise, and noble-minded, men are all on one side, and only rogues and fools are on the other. Where the wise and good are divided, the truth is generally found to be divided also. But this is precisely what cannot be admitted as long as the conflict continues. Men begin to fight about things when reason and argument fail to convince them. They make up in passion what they want in logic. Each side believes that all the right is theirs." -Froude.

[ocr errors]

THE days for public agitation have gone past. The riots of the early years of this century are out of date, except as rogues' tricks. Rebellions in our day settle down, like O'Connell's repeal movement, into a speculation for personal profit; though the "Rent" was regularly lifted, the political rent of the two countries was only increased and torn wider asunder in sympathy and interest. The Chartist agitation, with its Newport riots and its divided headship— O'Connor, Sturge, Lovett, Jones, Watkins, and Co.-came to a winding up at last, when no more wind could be raised. The Peace Society's agitation has only led to a greater demonstration_than ever that "there is no peace" to be had, however devoutly Pease and his coadjutors may desire it. Elihu Burritt's "Olive Leaves have been followed by General Butler's military orders. Grant appeared in the field to show that the times and seasons thought peace a thing that they could not grant. Law reform associations have been at work instituting agitations, but they have made little progress. The Social Science Congress meets yearly to ventilate its anti-social absurdities, and advocate its tea-and-toast Christianity, but its meetings come to no good-except on the evenings of its conversazioni, which are the converse of their prior dry proceedings. There exists a Financial Reform Association, an Anti-State Church Association, a Marriage Law Reform (or marry your deceased wife's sister) Association, and a thousand other associations-quite enough, in fact, to keep the very heart and soul of all the men and women in the country in a state of perpetual agitation, if not palpitation. But what have they done? What reform have they helped the people of England to effect? Then we have the great Permissive Bill Alliance, with its guaranteed five years' "agitation," at a cost of a sum suggested by Dr. Warren's novel, we presume, of "Ten Thousand a Year"!—and of it, too, we may ask the question, Cui bono? meaning, To what good purpose? not for the good of whom? In all these cases public agitation has proved itself incompetent and valueless, and therefore to be distrusted. But the world makes progress notwithstanding, and hence we conclude that public agitation is not essential to political reform. Agitation has been called by somebody "the unrepresented man's parliament." Similarly, the husting's show of hands (un

washen, shall we say? No!) may be called the poor man's vote. So it is, but what good does it effect? None. Agitation is often a misleading agency. Was this not shown in the controversy between the Anti-Corn Law League and Chartism, when the former said, Help us, and we will help you-and did not keep its promise? Agitation is useful to lift into importance those who attain to the leadership of it. Did not Lord Brougham spend the greater part of his early life in getting up agitations, that he might acquire a notoriety, and so get himself into office, using the schemes as they arose as stepping-stones to power, though unable to make them rounds of the ladder of influence? Did not O'Connell practise a similar dodge, and demand influence more on account of his "tail" than of his own powers? Has not John Bright been publicly accused in the House of Commons of endeavouring to get up an out-of-doors agitation, that he might be able to coerce the Government to adopt his views on Reform of being anxious to become a demagogue in order that he may be made a cabinet minister? In these cases agitation has been (or at least has been said to be) used not as an essential to political reform, but to personal aggrandizement. It is needless to go back to the days of Jack Wilkes for instances when we can point in our own day to men of the agitator class lifted into the House of Commons on the shoulders of brawny coagitators, who have then changed places and opinions, so that the protégés of O'Connell, as we believe Bulwer and Disraeli once were, have become members of or supporters of the reactionary Governments of the last quarter of a century.

All the good ends of agitation are now attainable through the press. Thoughtful men are now willing to have all questions regarding political reforms calmly and quietly debated in the usual organs of opinion until they are ripe for discussion in the Upper Houses, whose discussions have the effect of testing the practicability of the proposed measures; and whose debates are most keen and precise, because when the subject has reached them it has passed out of the region of mere theoretical controversy, and now stands upon the edge and verge of practical adoption. It is found that truth suffers less the less human passions interfere in the preliminary controversies about reforms, and that the stationary interests of men suffer less from the encroachments of theorists the more the passions are invoked to hold aloof the innovators. Hence newspaper discussion, followed by debate in the Houses of Parliament-as representative assemblies,-is found to be efficient for all the purposes of good, safe, and wise government. Convince men by controversy that a given political reform is required, they will send men to Parliament pledged to bring about these reforms peaceably and efficiently. Public agitation is effete. The newspapers and magazines are our true persuaders. British controversialists now read by the fireside instead of hearken to the tribunes of the platform or hustings, and hence "public agitation is not essential-it is rather inimical-to political reform." TREVELYN.

[ocr errors]

Education.

DO THE CLASSICS HOLD THEIR PROPER PLACE IN BRITISH EDUCATION?

AFFIRMATIVE ARTICLE.-II.

"Inter cuncta leges et percontabere doctos,
Quæ ratione queas traducere leniter ævum ;
Ne te, semper inops, agitet vexetque Cupido,
Ne pavor, et rerum mediocriter utilium spes :
Virtutem doctrina paret, Naturane donet :
Quid minuat curas; quid te tibi reddet amicum,
Quid pure tranquillet; honos, an dulce lucellum,
An secretum iter, et fallentis, semita vitæ."*

HOR., Ep. i. 18.

IN estimating the utility of a branch of knowledge it behoves us to consider both its inherent value and its value in relation to other branches. Of the former there are two kinds :-1st. Its value as a means of mental development. 2nd. Its value as it tends to store the mind with truths. If man were an end to something out of himself-if, in other words, he were created merely for the purpose of acting the lowly part of a dexterous instrument, the value of a branch of knowledge would be estimated not so much by its utility as storing the mind with truths, still less as a means conducive to mental cultivation, but merely as it tended to adapt him for the performance of the mere mechanical duties of whatsoever kind he might be required to fulfil. But man being an end unto himself, his perfection and happiness being manifestly the goal to which he must ever tend in order to fulfil the design of his Creator, it is incumbent upon him, keeping this in view, ever to employ those means which are most conducive to that end.

Notions are afloat, and held even by intelligent people, that in education, whatsoever does not come up to what is called the standard of utility is superfluous and out of place; but such persons are seemingly forgetful of the true end of education. If this were the mere training of an intelligent machine, to act in

* Translation.-"In everything you must read and interrogate the learned how you may spend a quiet life, lest insatiable desire, or fear, or the hope of gaining trifles harass and annoy you; whether learning imparts virtue or nature implants it; what diminishes cares; what endears you to yourself; what perfectly soothes the mind, honour, or enticing lucre, or a retired path, or the track of an unnoticed life."

« PreviousContinue »