The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1873-03-15 00:00:00

MR. ROEBUCK ON WORKING MEN

AND DEMAGOGUES.

On Monday evening the Sheffield Foresters gave a
banquet in celebration of the twentieth anniversary of
the establishment of their society, at which the Mayor
of Sheffield presided.
_ _ _ . _ ' •

Mr. Roebuck, Q. C., proposed the toast of the even-
ing, and said that in the English working man there
were great virtues and great weaknesses. He had never
been one who flattered the working man by telling bum
that he was one whom the world ought to look up to,
or that he was the one of all others who presented to
mankind an instance f great virtue. The working
man had great forethought, but at the some time he
had great simplicity ; his simplicity and his feeling of
his own virtue made him believe in the virtue of others.
The demagogue who came to him was but a man of his
own class, and perhaps was not a very good workman,
though he had HD: gift of the gab, and talked to the
artisan, and persuaded him that agitation would do
• vast number of wonderful things for his benefit; and
so the agitator worked on his simplicity, and led him
into great mischief. Now, he (the Bleaker) would pre-
sume to give the working man a word of advice, for
although he had never pandered to the passions of the
working classes, he believed that they were the back-
bone of the country, and that on their virtue depended
the existence of England. The working man was not
the sole man. He depended on capital, and capital de-
pended on him, and between them they made England
great. Separate them, however, and England would f all .
The demagogue who preached to the working man that
capital was his enemy was the working man's real
enemy; capital was his friend, capital might be made
his friend, and the man of capital who knew his busi-
ness would conciliate the working man, and would
make him his friend. (Cheers.) He had before his
mind what had occurred in South Wales, for he had
connections there. What were the terrible results to
working women of the strike that was going on? That
strike was not for the purposes of the working man,
but for the purposes of the demagogue who imposed
on his simplicity. When he (the epeaker) considered
the working women; when he considered their children;
when he considered the horrible misery they load gone
through ; and when he thought who had led the work-
ing men into the misery, he loathed demagogues by
whom the strike had been caused. (Hear, hear.) Be
had no hesitation in saying, and did not fear to say,
that the demagogue who had done it deserved the
execration of England. The audience did not respond
to this feeling; lint let those who heard his expression
of it, carry it home with them, and let them think
whether what had been done was the real wish of the
working man. The poor percentage of wages that
was asked to be increased bad been lost long ago in the
stru tele, and the working man would go back to his
employment poorer hut wiser, and it was to be hoped
that even his simplicity would have learnt a lesson
not easily forgotten. He (the speaker) did hope that
the time would never come when the working man
would be eeparated from the capitalist. He did not
believe that all men were of great virtue and great
worth, but he did believe that the great body ot the
capitalists of England were a body worthy of the con-
sideration of the working man ; and to the capitalists
he would say that the working men of England were
worthy of their regard, and that they should do all in
their power to lift them into& better position. Every
man could be a master. The great millions must work;
the great millions must be the working men; but out
of the millions every now and then there was a
man, and amongst his friends in Sheffield there
were many such men, who had raised themselves
from the working classes. He himself did not
happen to be one of them men. He wished he was—
(langhter)—for then he should be a rich man—he was
not a rich man. Ile was one of the old class of the
gentry of this country, and he would say to the
capitalists. " Help us and help your fellow men of this
country. You have been of them—they are of you.
Feel yourselves united as one class, and if you do 83
feel, you can carry the world before you. You have
intelligence, you have a land full of riches, if you do
your duty you will maintain this country at the head
of the mercantile world." (Cheers) But it depended
entirely on the combination of the working man and
the capitalists; and he (the speaker) was there to
stand between the demagogue who wanted to create a
feeling of difference between these two classes—
(cheers)—he was not of either class--he came before
them, atd placed himself between the demagogue
and the working man and his employer. He
would say to the working man, "Look to your
employer for aid and assistance through life.
(Cheers.) Don't quarrel with your friends ; listen
not to the demagogue, who like a serpent,
comes here to bite and to inflict the venom in his bite.
Don't listen to him, but listen to me ; a man—not of
one party or the other. I intend you to be friends."
He asked the working man to listen to the capitalist,
and to obey him and aid him. There was no degrada-
tion on the pert of the working man in all this, for it
was simply declaring that the capitalist was the richer
of the two. If the working man said to the capitalist,
"I am wanting ; I am failing—aid me," the capitalist
would come forward with the generosity of his nature
to moist and serve that man ; but the demagogue out-
side would eay to him, "Strike against that capitalist ;
try to ruin him; bring down his wealth," They might
depend upon it that such demagogue was a miserable
man, and if the artisans listened to him the worse it
would be for them. His (the speaker's) parting words
to them would be—to employer and the working max
"be you friends to one another." (Applause.)
At a later stage of the proceedings the learned gentle-
man responded to the toast of the Houeesof Parliament,
remarking that it seemed rather ridiculous he could
do so, considering he was no longer a member. A
great part of his life hail, however, been spent in
the House of Commons, and perhaps the reason why
he had been chosen to reply was that there was
no other person present so near to the House as
be was. (Laughter and cheers.) In speaking of the
House of Commons he spoke as a person who
thoroughly understood what that body had done
for the people of England. They might depend
upon it that no other nation in the world had such an
Assembly to represent it. (Hear, hear.) It has repre-
sented the nation'e great qualities, some of its fail-
ings, and some of its follies. As years had gone by,
and century succeeded century, the House of Com-
mons had been a great protection to England.
(Cheers.) That Home now was beyond suspicion;
it was not to be bribed, and was beyond supervision.
(Cheers.) There were other representative assemblies
where you could go in and bid for • member of Con-
gress, or, perhaps he should say, where you might bid
for a member of the Legislative Assembly of the coun-
try ; but who was there so bold as to say in England
that he could go into the market and buy a member of
the House of Commons? He who bought that member
would soon rue the consequences, and the result was
that at the present day the House of Commons repre-
sented not only the high intelligence and the high
honour and the chivalry of the people of England, but
It was also the representative of the very passions and
failings of the country, and these passions and
failings had an influence on the whole habitable globe.
At the present moment the ceivalry of the House of
Commons was sending a Commission to investigate the
slave trade upon the Eastern Coast of Africa. Was it
not a remarkable thing in the history of the world that
the people in this small island should feel so much for
the interests of mankind in general, and for the poor
defencelees black men of the Eastern Coast of Africa,
that it should send a large and influential band of men to
take care of their interests there? He thought it was a
very remarkable and significant instance of the influence
of England and the feeling of Englishmen. They
gained nothing by it ; they could not hope for them.
selves any advantages from saving the poor black man
from being sold ; but they felt that for the benefit of
humanity a duty was imposed upon them to protect
the helpless. The House of Lords and the House of
Commons were a great body amongst the people, and
he thought the most significant sign of the greatness of
the people of England was the House of Lords and the
House of Commons. (Cheers.)

An action to re over compensation for personal
injury has been brought against the North Eastern Railway
The plaintiff wa• the widow of a man who was driving a cab
under en archway near the railway station at Darlington.
A telegraph wire which visa broken WAS hanging loosely
'Rider the archway. As he drove under the archway he did
not see the wire, whiiß caught him under the chin, cut his
throat, and nearly aever.d his head from his body. The
derwid ants paid C. 250 into i.urt, which sum was Oct aceeptad
ea raflicient The jury found a verdict for the plaintiff tor
8,260 beyond the sum paid into court,