The Sun.
London, England, 1840-02-05 00:00:00

SOCIALISM.

The Bishop of EXETER said he had received a com-
munication from a friend of Mr. Wilberforce, who com-
plained of the manner in which the name of that venerable
man had been made use of in the discussions on Socialism.
On a former occasion he had called upon the Noble
Marquis to institute an inquiry respecting the legality of
the proceedings of that body, and if he should find them
to be illegal, to execute the law upon them. The Noble
Marquis had said he certainly would inquire, but he did
not expect to find them such as had been represented, and
that the matter had much better be left to the good sense
of the country, and that he regretted he (the Bishop of
Exeter should have taken the course ho had adopted.
If the Noble Marquis had said simply that he would in
quire into this subject, and then have acted manfully in
that inquiry, the result would have been, that he would
have been spared the trouble of the present discussion. It
appeared from the publications of the Socialists, that in
December last, at a meeting at Newcastle, a memorial was
agreed to, to be presented to the Government, and upon a
letter being written to the office of the Secretary of State
for the Home Department, Mr. Phillips had returned an
answer, that the Noble Marquis at the head of that depart-
ment, was willing to present it to the Government. These
were, however, not the only grounds which induced him to
think that the Government had not much eagerness to in.
stitute an inquiry into this subject. He had a letter ad-
dressed by a clergyman, whose name It, would not men-
tion, to the Noble Viscount, at the head of her Majesty's
Government, in which he deprecated the principles professed
by Mr. Owen, expressing his surprise that he should have
been presented at Court by the Noble Viscount, and stat-
ing his firm belief that the Noble Viscount was not aware
of the principles that he professed. Now what answer did
their Lordships suppose was returned to that letter—a let-
ter which adopted the course which the Noble Marquis had
lamented the other night had not been adopted at Bir-
mingham. That answer was as foilows :—" Reverend
Sir, I am desired by Lord Melbourne to acknowledge the
receipt of your lever of the 23d July, stating your objec-
tions to Mr. Owen being presented at Court. I am, Sir,
yours, &e. &c."—(Great laughter.) Now this letter was
from a Government professing to seek information on the
subject of Socialism ; he did not complain of the letter,
but this he must say—that if the Noble Marquis could be
happy under what he had done, he certainly was in a situa-
tion to be envied by all men.—( Laughter.) He would
not say anything further with regard to Mr. Owen being
presented at Court, but he had brought these points for.
ward in order to show that great doubts might very fairly
be entertained of the sincerity of the statement on the part
of her M rjesty's Government, of their desire to institute an
inquiry into the principles of the Socialists. The opinions
professed by those who entertained Socialist views, were
awful in the extreme. In one instance an individual of th•
name of Fleming, in opening the Socialist Society, there
stated that crowns and kings were the creation of man,
that they began in weakness and would be changed when
he gained strength ; that it was supposed that the whole
basis of society was placed on the free agency of man,
but that that was an error. Such was the spirit
for which these persons claimed the support, at least, the
connivance of her Majesty's Government; and in a lec-
ture delivered the same evening by the same individual,
after taking a Bible in his hands, he said he would prove,
from that book, that God was a fool and a liar.
Viscount MELBOURNE—Who was that?
_. .

Tee Bishop of E X ETE R—A parson named Fleming,
who said the present Government encouraged these things.
—(Laughter.) These were not the only persons who
placed confidence in the Government supporting these
principles, for a Noble Lord, who was not now in his
place, had that night presented a petition from Birming-
ham, signed by 8,000 persons, in favour of those
principles.—( Hem., hear.) That, in his opinion, sho wed
the imperative necessity for inquiry on this subject ;
and in addition to this two Socialist lecturers of the names
of Macintosh and Barclay, had stated that they had the
assurance of men in authority at Birmingham that they
would do alt in their power to support them in retaining
their opinions if prosecuted by the Government; and in
America it was considered that Socialism was gaining such
ground in England that there was no fear of the interfer-
ence of an Attorney-General. It was therefore clear that
these individuals expected the assistance of the Govern-
ment in propagating the principles they professed, and it
was therefore of the highest importance for their Lordships
to know that her Majesty's Ministers did not entertain the
sentiments which had been ascribed to them. He could
not believe that her Majesty's Ministers entertained any
such sentiments, but he must confess that they acted as if
they did.—( Hear, hear.) Their whole conduct showed a
want of feeling on this subject, which it was absolutely ne-
cessary for their Lordships to remove. He felt himself
bound to call the attention of her Majesty's Government
to the periodicals issued by these Societies. One periodical
called the New Moral World, contained principles blas-
phemous and infamous in the extreme. Government
had the power of putting down thcso publi-
cations, but they had not attempted to do so.
This publication was a periodical disseminative of the most
blasphemous doctrines that had ever been set forth by the
pen of man ; and for this the Government could seize the
presses and inflict heavy pecuniary penalties upon the pro-
prietors if the papers were stamped. So that all they had
heard upon the difficulty of stopping it NU to the ground.
Socialism, which he had stated to be a system of blasphemy
and demoralization did not go alone. In some cases it
had an admixture of Chartism ; and where that was not
so it had other very ruinous effects. A letter from a
clergyman at Bath informed him that if Socialism in itself
had not much increased, infidelity had—that a great
number of tracts were published, of 50 or 60 different kinds
—and that the congress of the Socialists declared that
they circulated half a million of them. The writer of that

letter, indeed, gave his opinion that the mere exposure
would do more harm than good. But he (the Bishop of
Exeter) would not reproach himself, whatever might be the

consequence of theirLordships' vote, or of the conduct of the
Government. Ho had done his duty in laying before
their Lord: hips the deplorable pestilence which was
spreading over the land. But he should feel unhappy if he
failed to persuade their Lordships to urge the Government
to take measures by which the system should be put down
A clergyman of Leeds told him, that, though he did
not fear the advance of Socialism, properly so called, yet
he looked with apprehension and horror at the evils which
were effected already by the dissemination of those tracts,
many of which were written in so plausible a manner
that they might be read without shocking the feelings of
-the unsuspecting. One of the modes used by tose
people was to engage lecturers an innocent subjects, so as
to induce innocent people to attend their meetings, as
they had employed Dr. Epps to lecture on physiology at
one of their institutions. It would be of little use to put
down this pernicious system, unless sanative measures
were adopted to counteract the natural wickedness of
man's heart.—(Hear, hear,) There were in Birmingham
180,000 souls, and for these there was only room to wor-
ship God in his own house for 24,000.—( Hear, hear,
hear.) if their Lordships wished to put down those
evils, they must induce the Government to provide
for the millions whom the manufactures or the avarice of
the country collected, the means of knowing that there is
a God, and that there is a Devil, in roan's heart.—( Hear,
hear.) In the London and Westminster Review of Ja-
nuary last, it was stated that Owenism was the creed of a
large portion of the population. The Right Rev. Prelate
then read extracts from Socialist tracts, to show that there
was an increase in the sale of those publications ; and also
extracts from letters of clergymen in Staffordshire and
Suffolk, stating that those papers were distributed exten-
sively throughout those ceunties. Another device was to
establish Sunday schools, in which, as they stated, facts
only should be taught, without any admixture of sectarian ;
principles. In a letter from which he read some extracts,
an account was given of the proceedings which took plaea
on Sunday, January 13th, at one of those Sunday schools