The Sun.
London, England, 1841-12-29 00:00:00

MORNING SU

TIME FOR A FORWARD MOVEMENT OF THE
LIBERALS.
TO THE EDITOR OF THE SUN.' 16-;1.,;
Sut,—Allow me to follow up the expedieney_
of arranging a general forward movement of the,
Liberals on the basis of the Freedom of Traele
,k, :i-K;
by insisting on two or three points strongly tend=
ing to recommend such an operation.
First, That the Liberal party at large have no
prospect of success but by setting up some great
and stirring object, which shall aim directly at
the sources of the hostile power by which they
are oppressed. The time is gone by when a Tory
Ministry could be ousted upon a point of eti-
quette. It must be a question of justice or no
justice,—freedom or no freedom. It must be a
question competent to rally one portion of the
nation against the other, and give the honest
men the victory. The game of the opponents is
to make the war keep the war; in plainer terms,
to rob in order to bribe. Like those that drain
a bog, we must go to the spring which is at the
bottom.

Secondly, That supposing them to have ever
such good and sound ground to fight upon, there
is no use in their attempting any struggle, unless
they can screw up their souls to the determina-
tion to bid highly to the " Slave Class" for their
assistance. That the slave class will not move
without, may not be wise, but it is in " human
nature'' Such young politicians as they, cannot
be expected to act the part of old diplomatists.
All the good in the world might be ready to
dmp into their mouths, and they not open them
unless they were to be paid for it. Do the Li-
berals want help or not ? If they do, they must
give the popular battalion some object for march-
ing which it can understand, without asking whe-
ther there are fifty reasons why it should march
without. Not one of them but knows indivi-
dually and personally, that he was beaten at the
mock Election because he had not the Working
Classes and the Ballot. And yet these men
Niggle about what they shall bid.
Lastly, to the populars. If they were old
diplomatists, as they are not, they would simply
ask themselves the question, whether they
should be better for the breaking down of the
Trade and Food monopolies or they should not.
It is true, attempts have been made by the
engines of the monopolists to persuade them
they would not; just as attempts have been
made to set them against the Ballot, in the full
knowledge that where the people had a penny-
weight of influence through the open voting, the
monopolists had a hundred ; which may now be
reckoned among gone-by mummeries. But if
they_ should determine that they would be better,
the question instantly becomes independent of how
much gratitude, how much good faith,or how much
virtue of any kind, they are to find in the middle
classes. Put the case that all these were absent
in the highest possible degree ;—that the middle
classes were curious in displaying themselves in
every discreditable light. Still it would be the
part of a child and not of a man, to take pet and
quarrel with the cake that could be had, on pre-
tence of being afraid of being deceived in the
expectation of some other. The port of wise
men would be to take what can be got, whether
the middle classes cheat or not ; and to take as
much in the way of gratitude or justice from the
middle classes, as Heaven shall send besides. In
fact this terror of being cheated by the middle
classes, may be set down as one of the sugges-
tions of the enemy. Its object is to hinder us
from taking what we may secure, whether the
middle classes prove to be gentlemen or not.
Permit me to take the opportunity of assuring
the working classes, that nobody has a worse
opinion of dependence upon other men's grati-
tude or virtue than myself. As a proof of it,
they may some of them remember, that after the
sort of movement towards them which appeared
to proceed from Manchester, I took the earliest
opportunity, at Huddersfield, of saying, "Blessed
are they that expect nothing, for they shall not
be disappointed !" and begge, of all things, not
to be considered as among the chargeable for any
disappointment which might ensue. But I did
my best to impress at the same time, that this
was no reason for not walking in at an open
door, or for refusing to take the good the gods
provide us in one direction, for fear of failure
in some other.

And now, to revert to the general subject,—Look
at the positio❑ of the Minister. He is pitted on
the support of a string of the most obvious,
glaring, insulting fallacies by which one man
ever attempted to take another's money in
this dubious world;—falsehoods which come
home to every man's bread-basket and
store-room, and break in upon every little
trader's hoarded notions of prudence and
integrity. How is he to get out of the
scrape ? Either he knew what he undertook to
support, or he did not. if he knew, then why is
he to he tolerated longer than any other man
who has attempted a public injury and failed?
If he did not, then what claim has a man so far
behind the knowledge of his age and time, to set
up for a ruler in a popular Government, though
under any imaginable quantity of apologies for
his insulated ignorance? The Minister has had one
five months' delay already, on the ground that he
had not come to the knowledge of whether rob-
bing a man hurt him or not. Surely he will not
have another, however when beaten be may
declare himself to have gotten light during his
period of incubation. There never was a better
board ; if only the old Mar-ails could be pre-
vented from having more than a reasonable
finger in the game.—Yours very sincerely,
T. PERRONET THOMPSON.
Blackheath, Dec. :27, 1841.