The Express.
London, England, 1867-01-03 00:00:00

HR. LOWE AND THE WORKING CLASSES.

The following correspondence has been forwarded
to the Times for publication :
" 10, Clarendon-gardens, Maids-vale, W.,
Jan. 1, 1867.
" Sir,—Believing you will kindly pardon the liberty I
take in thus addressing you, I venture to do so, not with
the presumptuous object of questioning the views you
have seen fit to take on a subject of profound importance
to the present interests and future welfare of this country,
but with the more simple one of asking, in all earnest.
ness and anxiety, if the great meetings, unprecedented
in numbers, order, and enthusiasm, held during
the recess have not induced you to modify your
harsh, unjust, and unfortunate opinions about
the working classes expressed during the last
session of parliament—opinions which have tended more
than aught else to rouse a spirit of stern, inflexible resolve,
and which, if allowed to foster among the muses a sense
' of wrong xnd insult, may lead to consequences which few
expect and none desire. But surely you will be ready to
confess that the recent gatherings have been characterised
by uniform decorum and good conduct, by an entire ab-
sence of drunkenness, violence, turbulence, and the other
vices enumerated by you ; that on those occasions at least
the industrial populations have evinced an honourable
eagerness to sacrifice time, means, comfort, and con-
venience in a cause which they were sufficiently
enlightened to consider sacred and beneficial. As
• member of the Reform League Executive, I should cer-
tainly deem it neither wise nor necessary here to indicate
the moral to which such imposing and convincing demon-
strations of self-control and intelligence appear to me un-
mistakably to point ; but Ido unhesitatingly submit that
under these circumstances, if your public utterances have
not hitherto been actuated by mere caprice, the moment
has arrived when you may well undo what threatens to be
• fatal work, and gracefully retract accusations which
only enemies of English freedom, English character, and
English institutions could hail with pleasure or satisfac-
tion. Again apologising for thrusting myself upon your
notice and trespassing upon your time, I have the honour
to remain your obedient humble servant,
" JOESEPH GCEDALLA.
" Right Hon. Robert Lowe, M.P."

" Lowndes-square, Jan. 2, 1867.
" Sir,— For many months the Reform League has, by
resolutions,handbills, and speeches, accused me of charging
the entire working clam of this country with venality,
drunkenness, and other misconduct. The passage in my
speech of March 13, 1a68,0n which this accusation professes
to be grounded, only states that such things do unhappily
exist in the constituencies, and that where they do exist
they are to be found among the poorer ratherthan the richer
voters. A comparison of these two statements will show—
first, that I was speaking of the constituencies, not of the
working class at large—and next, that I only pointed out
where such venality and other misconduct as does exist is
most likely to be found. The Reform League having
thus fastened upon me assertions which I have not made,
has loaded me with the moat virulent abuse, and has
striven to make me an object of the hatred, perhaps a
mark for the vengeance, of my fellow-countrymen. With
such a body and its leaders, of whom you appear to be
one, I have no courtesies to interchange. When I think
proper to give an opinion on the recent popular demon-
strations it is not to the Reform League chat I shall
offer it. You call on me to retract not what I have said,
but your misrepresentation of what I have said. You
can hardly be serious in making such a request. I decline
to accede to it, and leave the case to the judgment of the
country. I shall send this correspondence to the news-
papers.—l am, sir, your obedient servant,
" Joseph Guedalla, Esq." " Roarer Lots.