The Press.
London, England, 1858-11-20 00:00:00

THE PRESS, NOVEMBER 20, 1858.

1122

Reformers. We make no attack upon their
motives, and we admit in many instances their
great ability. But we cannot help seeing that
Mr. BRIGHT is monophthalmic. lie talks ex-
tremely well, but much of it is about what he
does not understand, and is therefore full of pre-
judice in some instances and unseemly misrepre-
sentation in others. We will not doubt that he
is desirous of benefiting hir country as a whole.
But his politics have 'so blinded him that he
cannot see it as * irholt6 though he' thinks that
he does; and the result' is that he is doing one
portion of his work in the dark. It is so with
all his school. Their views are limited to one
section of the community, and to please and pro-
pitiate that section they will sacrifice all the rest.
So they tell us that they wish to see legisla-
tiqp that will secure the permanent benefit of
all classes. But by " all classes," they mean the
working classes, and perhaps the trading classes,
especially if they work or trade in cotton. Mr.
BRIGHT would be sorry to see the upper classes
benefited in any way. Or rather we should say
that he has eccentric views of what would be for
their benefit. He would think, for instance, that
it would be for their benefit to be mulcted in
some way, by greater taxation or by the parti-
tion of their estates. Who can fancy Mr. BRIGHT
wishing to see a bishop benefited, or a great peer
and landowner ? The thing is preposterous.
" The benefit of all classes," as the Radicals
have it, is a confusion of the rights of pro-
perty and an enrichment of the working man by
the spoliation of the wealthy. They cannot under-
stand the benefit to society of the gradations of
rank. It is nothing to them that there is a social
balance of power as well as an international one.
Impressed with an exaggerated theory of the
equality of political rights, and the inequalities
of the existing representative system, they feel
the need of prompt and vigorous reform. So
far we have little to object. But the moment
they take. the actual work of Reform in hand, the
partiality of their vision, the littleness of their
minds, and the narrowness of their sympathies,
become manifest. They see but half of their pro-
blem, and leave out of their calculation that a
true and sound reform involves the benefit of
every class, disturbs not the balance of our social
system, and maintains the great relations of the
Constitution unchanged. The consequence is that
they begin by enlisting the passions of the poor
against the rich. To do this it is necessary to
draw an ugly picture of noblemen and landed
proprietors, and a pretty one of factory operatives,
artizans, and agricultural labourers. And how
unscrupulously they can do this we have seen in
some recent speeches at Birmingham.
But Mr. BRIGHT'S attack upon the aristocracy
is not likely to pass unchallenged by those whom
it chiefly concerns. The Duke of ARGYLL and
Lord Lrrrstros have already come to the
rescue of their order, and as opportunities arise
the Peers of England will have no lack of
defenders.

The Duke of ARGYLL is a living contradiction
of Mr. Balcarr's disparaging insinuations. Ac-
cording to the Hon. Gentleman, a peer's eldest
son has no motive to exertion: He passes
through school and college in a lazy, inert way.
Knowing he will be rich and looked up to, he has
no stimulus to emulation ; and as peerages are
not yet awarded by a competitive examination,
there is nothing to induce the noble youth to
cultivate his intellect or qualify himself to do
anything. Hence he succeeds to his title and
estates, a poor useless creature, capable only of
folly and luxury, a deadweight on Parliament,
an incubus on society. And the crowning mis-
fortune of this country is, that these constitute
an estate of the realm I Anyhow this does not
hold good in the Noble Duke's case. He, as a
youth, had the early possession of titles and
estates before his eyes. But these did not blind
him to the responsibilities of his position. They
did not disincline him to make good use of his
time, to cultivate his powers, and qualify
himself for public usefulness in the service
of his country; nor when lie was at length
fairly entered upon his hereditary station did
the accidents of his birth and position
prevent his rapid success as a public speaker and
a politician. His powers, his attainments, and
his industry have been such that two successive
Cabinets have found room for him, and various
public institutions for the promotion of art and
science have placed him at their head or amongst

their leading members. And it is this man—this
living contradiction of the impugner of the aris-
tocracy—who comes forward at Dundee, in a
speech which might compare in fluency and point
with any of Mr. BRIGHT's, to vindicate his order,
and repudiate the aspersions of his assailant. But
be does more : he shows that he can do something
besides defendine himself against an adversary : he
can interest andinstruct an educated audience, and
also bring the advantages of his extensive read-
ing to bear, upon the enlightenment of those very
working classes whom Mr. BRIGHT would teach
to hate him. Now, the Duke of ARGYLL, is no
destructive Tory such as Radicals delight to pic-
ture as the enemies of all advancement in social
or political life. He is the advocate of progress ;
the member of a Liberal Ministry ; the companion
of Whig statesmen ; the friend of popular liberty,
popular education, and popular improvement in
any shape. His testimony is, therefore, all the
more valuable when he declares his honest con-
viction that the tendency of events has been to
draw the higher and lower classes of the commu-
nity nearer together front year to year, and that
the attempts of Radical agitators to stir up dis-
union are so many steps in a backward direction.
Equally pertinent were the remarks of Lord
LYTTELTON, himself a scholar of a high order,
and a friend of progress and of the amelioration
of the condition of the working classes. Indeed,
a glance down the peerage will show how largely
the sons of noble houses have distinguished them-
selves. In point of learning, there is seldom a
class-list at either University without one or more
noblemen in it ; while even Mr. BRIGHT could
hardly maintain that Lord INGESTRE, Lord GODE
nicn, Lord EBRINOTON, Lord JOHN MANNERS,
Lord COURTENAY, not to speak of Lord STANLEY,
Lord HARROWBY, Lord SHAFTESBURY, Lord
JOHN RUSSELL, and many more, have not devoted
a large portion of their time and talents to the
promotion of the welfare of those classes whom
Mr. BRIGHT shamelessly says are poor because of
the unjust legislation for which these self-denying
noblemen are responsible.
The egregious injustice of saddling all the
wants of the poor upon the oppression of the
landed aristocracy is a disgrace to the cause which
these pretended friends of the people profess to
advocate. We are not going to condescend to
a tit quoque, but it might be worth inquiring
whether cotton-spinners are always friends of
the poor ? In very many cases, we cheerfully
acknowledge that they are a well-educated, mu-
nificent, and exemplary class of gentlemen. In
many more, we certify of our own knowledge
that they are selfish, grasping, and oppressive.
Depend upon it, immorality, the Chartism, the
dark phases of degraded life which are so often
the chief characteristics of the poor in populous
places, come from something else besides the
mere consequence of the aggregation of numbers.
Aud it would be quite possible to conceive a far
better state of things if the owners of mills and
factories exhibited as much sense of responsibility
for the improvement of their people as is usually
found in the owners of land. Doubtless, strikes
and adverse combinations of trades are the off
spring of popular passion and delusion, but it is
far from certain that great employers of labour
are not to a great extent responsible for them.
Mr. Brucrrr's admirers should investigate this
point. It might even be a piece of timely wis-
dom to do so, for certainly whenever the people
whom they now hoodwink with their specious
plausibilities come to see, as sooner or later they
certainly will, with both eyes, they will know
their true friends from feigned ones; and should
the time ever come when the working classes
carry Mr. BRIGHT's teaching to its legitimate
results and rise against the titled owners of land,
the self-dignified aristocracy of the mill will not
escape easily. The Nemesis of Radicalism will
know her own.

public at large, as an agreeable
To
say that it is not only a singularly able composi-
tion,—but that it was delivered, under the
gigantic dome of St. Paul's, with a grace and
an anijnation which, in such a space and
before such an audience, not many men could
have commanded,—is giving it the least weed of
praise that can be awarded to it. And yet, even
for that feature of his performance, our new
Diocesan is entitled to no small amount of credit.
The selection of that part of the area of St.
Paul's immediately under the dome for the pur-
pose of addressing large assemblies, was consi-
dered by good judges in such matters as a doubt-
ful experiment ; and to make that experiment
with his Primary Visitation Charge was un-
questionably a bold step, such as few men would
have ventured upon. Dr. TAIT ventured upon
it, and succeeded admirably.
It is not, however, on account of the adventi-
tious merit of appropriate arrangements and a
successful delivery—though, considering the use
to which the area under the dome is intended to
be put hereafter, that, too, is matter for congra-
tulation—that Dr. TAIT'S Primary Visitation
Charge has won golden opinions for him. The
substance matter of the Charge has already done
much, and, when there shall have been time fully
to consider its contents, will do yet more, to raise
his Lordship in the estimation of the clergy and
laity of the diocese to that high position which it
is desirable that the Bishop of this great metro-
polis should occupy. This is all the more grati-
fying because it was in some measure unexpected.
While no one questioned the personal amiability
of Dr. TAIT, and the goodness of his intentions,
doubts were entertained by many as to the suffi-
ciency of his calibre, intellectually as well as
theologically, for the government of not only the
largest, but probably the most highly-educated
yof clergy in the whole world. Partly, no
doubt, this impression was owing to his antecedent
career, which was not of a nature either to bring
his powers and attainments prominently before
the public, or to give him that practical insight
into the Church's parochial work which is so
essential a qualification for the episcopal office.
Add to this some injudicious remarks which fell
from his Lordship on one or two occasions, chiefly
in his place in Parliament, and in a few instances
a line of action which did not altogether square
with the law ecclesiastical and with English
notions of justice, and we can scarcely wolider
that misgivings should have begun to be enter-
tained as to the future government of the metro-
politan diocese.

These misgivings Dr. Trim's Primary Visita-
tion Charge will go a great way to remove. His
Lordship has evidently made good use of his
time during the two first years of his episcopate.
He has mastered the facts with which he has to
deal, and he views them with a comprehensive
grasp of mind, with much discrimination and
practical wisdom, and, we are happy to add, in
a spirit equally removed from sectarian narrow-
ness and from latitudinarian indifference. He does
not, upon certain points, disguise his personal
leanings towards the views of one rather than
the other of the two schools into which our
Church is divided ; but he has, in the most
solemn manner, pledged himself to hold the
scales even between the two, on the principle
that the Church whose laws he is called to ad-
minister, is founded upon a basis of comprehen-
sion, not of exclusion. The terms in which he
acknowledged not only the zeal and piety, but
the valuable services to the Church, of the very
men against some of whose extravagances of
doctrine and practice he felt himself bound to
protest, indicate an evident and heartfelt desire
on the Bishop's part to do them the fullest justice,
and to win, rather than constrain, them to a
more moderate tone of sentiment and conduct.

---- -----
Having said this, we may be permitted to add
that we should have liked the Charge all the
better if it had entered less fully into the
questions, still pending, with regard to the revo-
cation of the licence of the Rev. A. POOLE, and
the continuance of the Exeter-hall services in
defiance of the prohibition of the Incumbent.
As regards the latter, the Bishop avowed, and