The Sun.
London, England, 1841-08-11 00:00:00

TO THE EDITOR OF THE SUN.

was much struck with the force and truth of
some observations contained in an article of your journal
of last Thursday, headed, " What's to be done ?" in
which, I think, are summed up in a few compendious and
unanswerable arguments the leading causes of the recent
triumph of Toryism at the elections. The answer to the
question, " How happens it that parties have been so
evenly balanced as to cause Chartism, intimidation, and
bribery to turn the scale ?" is well worthy of repetition,
and should be deeply impressed upon the minds of all
classes of Reformers:—" Now the problem so hotly de-
bated may be solved by looking at the state of society in
this country. There is enormous wealth, and most ab-
ject poverty; a privileged aristocracy, and an aristocracy
of the purse ; the latter striving to obtain the counten-
ance of the former. by aiding it in the establishment of
an oligarchical despotism. Descending from them through
the various grades of squirearcy, gentry, professions, re-
tired tradesmen, we find them all moved by the same de-
sire of getting into the circle just above them—and for
this content to sacrifice their independence of mind, their
liberties, their consciences. Voluntary slaves themselves, -
they hate to see independence claimed and exercised by,
those below them. With such ramifications the oligarchy
could not fail to exercise an overwhelming influence over
the dependent, which can only be counteracted when the
popular mind is sufficiently excited to set at defiance both
promises and threats." Yes,• Sir, it is to this miser-
able feeling—the base compound of a petty ambi-
tion and pettier avarice, that we are indebted
or the disgraceful apathy of the middling
classes at the registry, and upon all the important poli-
tical questions of the day. To it we may trace their
want of a generous confidence in a Reform Ministry, or
a deep faith in the leading principles of civil and reli-
gious freedom—hence their readiness to sacrifice their
future permanent strength, freedom and happiness, 'to
the sensual gratifications, and the personal conveni-
encies of the moment. Hence the mad outbreaks of
chartism—the fever of Owenism—the intense ignor-
ance, poverty, and misery of the operative classes.
Above all may we not look to this spurious ambition
of the glitter and trappings of aristocracy, and the
soul-absorbing pursuit of wealth, as s means of ac-
quiring them, to this slavish idolatry of rank and
fashion, without intelligence or virtue, as the natural
parents of that estrangement at the present moment of

de lower from the Middle classes—one of the master-
evils of our present social position, the stumbling block
and barrier between us and all political reformation ;
and which must be cleared away before the nation can
again start fresh and fair on her career of freedom.
The middle classes have been made the ladder upon
which the Tory party are again quietly mounting into
political ascendancy •
" Whereunto the climber upwards turns his face,
But when he once attains the upmost round
He then unto the ladder turns his back ;
Looks in the clouds, scorning the base degrees
By which he did ascend."
When they have been used they will be spurned.
They will then be treated, by those whom they have
hoisted into power, as they deserve—as unreflecting
instruments, and mindless tools. But " time and
skill will couch the blind." A few years and
bitter experience will convince them, that their true.
place, their most glorious position, is at the van of the
working classes. There are two giant rivers in the
Western world, which, when forced by the hand of
Nature into a common channel, meet with the fury of
combatants, and may be traced by the traveller for many
a league flowing on in streams distinct in colour and dis-
united in tide, until, tamed and mellowed by distance,
their waters gradually commingle, and at last roll on in
one vast stream, deep, powerful, and united. The mid-
dling and operative classes of England resemble at this
moment those rivers, and free trade is the common
channel into which they have been gradually forced by
Nature and Nature's God. If the comparison, be a cor-
rect one, we may confidently look forward at no distant
day to the complete union of thoge two great classes,
constituting the great bulk of the nation—the heart and
muscles of its frame ; and now forced into an unnatural
and vicious opposition, partly by their own wilful neglect,
folly, and ignorance, and partly by the false reasoning,
the grinding avarice, the scheming ambition, threats, and
bribery of a gang of commercial monopolists and landed
proprietors. To hasten this union should be the leading
object of every true Reformer. The plan so often and
powerfully advocated by your excellent journal of spread-
ing through every town and village of the land Reform
and Registration Societies, appears to me the
surest and simplest method of achieving this
all-important point. The creation, the triumphant
progress, and daily increasing importance of the Anti-
Corn-law League, should encourage us in the attempt ;
it is in miniature what a national league might be upon
a scale as extensive
.as the greatness of the cause, the
dignity of the nation, and the certainty of success should
demand. A central society of this nature, with provin-
cial branches, delegates, talented lecturers, with periodi-
cal meetings, and general conventions, vigilantly watch-
ing over the registration of votes, and affording practical
'political information to all requiring it, might, by the ex-
ertion of a few talented, courageous, and persevering
minds, form an engine of popular power formidable enough
to batter down those fortifications within which the food-
taxing oligarchy has been sheltered, and shake to its very
centre the citadel of Toryism. It will encounter
and break up that spirit-crushing centralization system
now rampant in every village of England—a system of
centralization to which we have too long and patiently
crouched, and too constantly beheld in active operation
easily to admit its extent, to credit its danger, or to be-
startled by its tyranny. I will intrude no longer upon
your valuable space, but I hope to prove to positive de-
monstration in another letter the existence in this land
of liberty of a complicated, comprehensive, and powerful
plan of tyranny which may be traced from the house of
hereditary legislators .to the parish clerk and the
vestry-room, its machinery worked by Tory lords-
lieutenant, Tory parsons, Tory magistrates, Tory
squires, backed by a Tory army, • navy, yeo-
manry, and the great bulk of the learned professions
—a compendious scheme 'of oppression, which cramps
and withers the mental and physical powers of our rural
and town population—which Louis Philippe, the genius,
the evil principle of centralization itself, might admire
and envy, even behind the fortifications of Paris, and the
bristling bayonets of his guards; a system which might
appear almost hopeless to endeavour to uproot, but for
the liberty of the press and the courage of our national
character. I remain, Sir, your obedient servant.
Aug. 2, 1841. CIVIS.