The Sun.
London, England, 1840-06-15 00:00:00

that Europe has :had—a fit companion for the King of
Prussia, who I hope is still living, although there have been
reports of his death. When I found that the British
Government would not or could net introduce measures to
retno overty and the fear of poverty from this country,
I gave L„. plan to foreign Ministers to see if any of them
would take it up ; and I found that Mr. Falk, the Dutch
Ambassador, became greatly enamoured with it, and he
sent it to his Court and to some of the leading people of
Holland. They immediately adopted the principles and
applied them comparatively well to practice, and the con-
sequence was that for many year after they introduced the
system there were no paupers in Holland. I have be,..r,
informed that latterly—nay, that for mane years these in-
dividuala were enabled not only to cover their own current
expenses, but also gradually to repay the capital which was
first invested in the formation of colonies before any return
could be made. But I have been told latterly that they
were not going on so well. I am not surprised at that, for if
they had been carried on as they were at first, that experi-
ment would have proved to the world that poverty, or the
fear of poverty, did not belong to human society properly di-
rected, and that experiment could not be allowed to go on
justly, fairly, and fully, and the present system ot force and
fraud in the world be eontiaued.—( Hear, hear.) Utterly
impossible ± But, my friends, this country is in a position
totally different from what it has ever been before. Greet
Britain is now a sib to ,Il the nations of the world. Great.!
Britain is the most wealthy nation that ever existed, and
Great Britain is the poorest nation, at tine same t'rne that
ever existed. We have a power of producing wealth such
as no nation ever before possessed. When 1 was a boy
our power of producing wealth was but as one to one com-
pared with the population. Our population is scarcely yet
doubled from what it was at that period, the population
being then 15 millions, and the producing power, manual
and scientific, about 15 millions. Now our population is
probably riot quite 30 millions, while our productive power
has risen in the most miraculous manner, until it exceeds
the labour of 600 millions, with the power at our control
now to increase that power to one, two, five, or ten thou-
sand millions at our pleasure.-_( Hear, hear.) And yet,
my friends, with this enormous power of creating wealth,
such as at one time would have been thought more chi-
merical to dream of than of the wonders told in the story
of the Arabian Nights ; )et in this nation, possessing this
enormous power, with the means of increasing it at will
_yet have there been. during the last year or two, pun_
dreds, thousands, nay, I fear, tens of thousands, gradually
starving for want of the commonest necessaries of life_
( Shame, shame). My friends, these things must not be
any longer—( No, no, and bear, hear). This is the most
scandalous state of > ociety in which human beings can
exist. Ido not mean to make use of strong, disagreeable
language, but I do want to rouse the attention of this
country to this striking anomaly, that, possessing a power
for the production of wealth greatly beyond what can ever
be necessary for the human race, that we should patiently
sit down and see around us our fellow-creatures labouring
from morning till night their fourteen, fifteen, sixteen,
seventeen, or eighteen hours a day, and yet, so labouring,
that they and their wives and little ones must, after a
little time, either gradually starve for want or the meanest
and commonest necessaries of life, or go into the work-
houses which have been built for them all over the coun-
try.---( Hear, hear, and cries of " Shame, shame.") My
friends, you know that our principles arc that the cha-
racter of man is formed for him. The characters of our
governors have been formed for them in the same manner
that our characters have been formed for us, and were
they to direct the energies of this country in the man-
ner which I have described, although not one single
step has bean yet taken in the right course to govern
this country in accordance with the means which we pos-
sess, these men have been so trained, and are so placed,
that of themselves they cannot move one step in a right
course. All their powers and faculties are engaged in sup-
porting themselves as one faction opposed by another
equally powerful faction.—( Applause ) But are the
people of this country to be slaves for ever to the igno-
rance and the irrationality of factions, or shall they arise
as one man and say, " If you are not in a position to
govern this country beneficially for yourselves, and bene-
ficially fur the population, we a.-k for some of the national
means to enable us to showy ou in what manner the national
energies of this country can be applied so as to relieve
you from the everlasting disgrace of having millions
upen millions squandered every year, and yet that
there should be a begrudging of 30,0001. o-year
to lead the mass of the people cut of the gross ignorance
and darkness in which they live."—(Hear, hear.) My
fiends : It is useless complaining. Where everything
is wrong any one at random can find fault, and find
fault justly ; but I hold that it is the next thing to useless
to find fault with that which is, until we have discovered
the means by which that which is wrong may in a practical
shape and manner be put right--put right not by force, not
by violence—right was never yet obtained by force arid
violence—but put right in such a manner that no one cf
any class, or sect, or party in any country shall be injured
by the change as it takes place. My friends, you know
another of our fundamental principles is that man is the
creature of the circumstances in which he shall be placed
from the time of his birth through childhood and through
life. Is it nut so? It is so, and admitted to be so. And
yet were we to go through the greater part of this town_
nay, were we to go through the greater part of all the po-
pulou, towns and cities in the world, what should we find ?
Why, we should find a combination of the most vicious, de-
grading, and injurious external circumstances surrounding
the great mass of the population in every one of these towns.
While philosophers of past ages have acknowledged that
man is the creature of circumstances, the British Govern
ment—the most advanced in civilization, the wealthiest
state of which we have any knowledge, has for centuries past,
permitted within a mile and a half of its Court, of the centre
Of its power, a combination of circumstances existing in
a large district called St. Giles's ; and while these exter-
nal circumstances have forced every infant from its birth
within these purlieus to have the most inferior language,
the worst habits and manners, and to have the worst pos-
sible character formed for them—l say forced by these cir-
cumstances—that it is a great chance if, before they attain
full manhood, they arc not tried and imprisoned many
times, or transported or hung. And yet what has been
the reason of all this, that the British Government should
have permitted such wretched degrading external cir-
cumstances to have continued for centuries, creating
those inferior human characters, when every child that has
been born in St. Giles's for the last five hundred years
might, under other arrangements, have formed into men and
women far superior to any men and women that have lived
during the same period? My friends, is not this past bear-
ing ? Can we go on day after day, year after year—nay,
century aftercentury, and allow these wretched circumstances
to exist, when we acknowledge that man is the creature of
those circumstances in which he is placed ?—(" No, no,
no." No, my friends; look there—(pointing to the pic-
ture of the New Moral World)—and look on each side of
you—(pointing to some plans illustrati.ve of the commu-
nity system)—there is hope for you yet.
Several other toasts were proposed and responded to,
but nothing further transpired which would justify us in
extending this report to a greater length than we have al-
ready given it. The only speech delivered afterwards
which was at all worth notice, was one by Mr. Lloyd
Jones, one of the social missionaries, on " Freedom of
discussion." Although in the speech there was little
that was new, the style of its composition, and the dis-
tinctneiss of its arrangement, were both worthy of praise;
the one being elegant without bombast, the other so sim-
ple as to arrest the attention of the most indifferent
thinkbr. it was somewhat remarkable—and, indeed,
rather a matter of commendation—that in his speech little
or no allusion was made to the principles of socialism.
The party separated about eleven o'clock.

PROSECUTION OF THE SOCIAL-
ISTS FOR RECEIVING MONEY FOR AD-
MISSION TO LECTURES.

Peter Catterall, Isaac Higginbottom, and Richard
Ward, were summoned to appear at the Borough Court
on Wednesday last, charged with having received money
for the admission of persons to lectures on Socialism, dt
the Socialists' building, called the Hall of Science,
Camp field. The information was laid under the in
39th
George 111. c. 79, sec. 15, by the Rev. W. J. Kidd in-
cumbent of St. Matthew's. The foilowine is a copy of the
clause on which the proceeding was founded :
" And whereas divers places have of late been used for
delivering lectures or discourses, and holding dam which
lectures, discourses, er debates have, in many inessi ancs,
been of a seditious and immoral nature, be it furthere
enacted, that every house, room, field, or other place at or
in which any lecture or discourse shall be publicly delivered,
or any public debate shall be had on any subject whatever for
the purpose of raising or collecting money, or any other
valuable thing from the persons admitted, either under pre -
1 tence of payment for any refreshment or other thing, or un-
der any other pretence, or for any cause, or by any device of
contrivance whatever, shall be deemed a disorderly house or
place, unless the same shall have been previously licensed in
manner hereinafter mentioned ; and the person by whom
such room, field, or place shall be opened or used, for any
of the purposes afoiesaid, shall forfeit the sum of 1001. for
every day or time that such house, room, field, or place
shall be opened or used as aforesaid, to such parson as will
sue for the same, and be otherwise punished, as the law
directs in cases of disorderly houses ; and every person
managing or conducting the proceedings, or acting as me-
derator, president, or chairman at such house, room, field,
or place so opened or used as aforesaid, or therein debat-
ing or delivering any discourse or lecture, and also every
person who shall pay, give, collect, or receive, or agree
to pay, give, collect, or receive any money or anything in
respect of the admission of any person into any such house,
room, field, or place, or shall deliver out, distribute, or
receive any such ticket or tickets, or token or tokens as
aforesaid, knowing such house, room, field, or place to be
opened or used for any such purpose aforesaid. shall, lb:
every such offence, forfeit the sum of 201." Manchester
Guardian.
Owing to various circumstances this information was
not concluded till Friday, when Higginbotom, against
whom alone the prosecution was persisted in, was convicted
in a penalty of 201., but the case was immediately removed
by certiorari, into the Queen's Bench, and the proper re_
cognizancea entered into. When that was done, and the
information against the others had been withdrawn, Mr.
Pclfreymaii, the defendant of She Socialists, then said, I
have to make an application fur summonses against the
Rev. Joseph Barker, for delivering four lectures in Car.
pentcr's Hall, which is a place not licensed, on the 4th,
sth, and 6th of Msy. Mr. Maude, Magistrate.— You
can lay the informations in the usual way, and we are
baund to act according to law. Mr. Palfreyman-1 also
wish to state publicly that I have to !make a similar appli_
"firm. against the lecturer at the Victoria Gallery. Mr.
Maude—Very well.
This we look on as a repetition of the tactics adopted
by the Socialists in reference to blasphemous publications.
They direct the law which is brought to bear against
them, against their opponents, and probably will frighten 1
them from their intended prey. We quote the case, too,
in order to put other lecturers on th: 'r guard. We also
c'JPs' Scs Goo/Wit/Ws ren:arks :
" PUBLIC LEC(UnES AND LECTURE iiOOIVIS —'l`. ,
to call the attention of our readers to a report, which ;ip`f ,
pears in another page, of a proceeding of a novel charac-
ter (though under an old Act of Parliament) against some