The Sun.
London, England, 1866-10-10 00:00:00

social Science C,pnference.

MANCHESTER, Tuesday.
Sir X. P. Kay Shuttleworth, Bart., this morning
read a. paper, which he entitled " A Sketch of the
Laws of Social Progress, illustrated by the Growth
of the Freedom and Political Capacity of the Manual

Labour Class in England." He said—How necessary
an element time is in all permanent changes becomes
evident also, if we reflect that revolutions seldom

accomplish the objects which are embodied in their
principles, except after the lapse of a long period
from that of the destructive oatbreak. For example,
the French revolution was in the first instance most
powerful to destroy all privilege, to confiscate and
disperse the estates of the noblesse, and on this basis
to Create, not simply equality of civil rights before
the law, but, as far as the law could accomplish it,
to provide an equality of civil conditions by the
compulsory subdivision of property under the law of
bequest. But the idea of personal and civil liberty
has been of slow growth, and that of self-govern-
ment has not had power to develope itself, under
the centralised bureaucracy of France and the mili-
tary organisation which have subordinated personal
and civil liberty to that of the external influence of
France in Europe. France has become an armed
democracy, with a chief wielding the military and
civil power, but holding his authority as the expres-
sion for the time being of the strongest force in the
revolution, viz., that love of equality which tends
ultimately to the domination of numbers,and which,
having failed repeatedly to establish a republic in
France, exalts a chief on the condition that he make
himself its instrument. The French are, therefore,

far from liberty, and they have attained equality
only by the creation of a despotism supported by
the peasantry, the artisans, and the army. The
fruits of the French revolution cannot be said to be
reaped until among this subtle and enlightened
people there is perfect freedom in the expression of
political opinions, nor until the faculty and institu-
tions of self-government are developed. The revo-
lution of 1792 was, therefore, powerful to destroy
privilege and to establish equality, but probably

another century must elapse before the French
people attain the powers of self-government and all
the privileges of personal freedom. Time is, there-

fore, required for great changes, and all changes
are the results of the continuous operation of na-
tural forces which evolve phenomena in a regular
succession. Nothing endures which is not
in harmony with this law. The improvement

in the condition of any class, the growth of any in-

stitution—such, for example, as a representative go-
verning body—the relative powers and privileges of
the great forces which create and sustain society. It
is impossible to overleap intervals of time, so that
conditions of society which a philosophic observer
may foresee to be possible and to be ultimately bene-
ficial, shall exist otherwise than as the result of that
irresistible development to oppose which is to enter
into a war with nature. Thus, in our own history,
no change has been permanent which has not been
a logical consequence of other antecedent conditions,
all proceeding from the same social force, and has
not also been in harmony with surrounding condi-
tions. The progress of civilisation is continuous,
and for the most part not interrupted by catas-
trophes, but when such revolutions occur they result
from the accumulated force of social causes, the na-
tural effects of which have resisted, and which at
length break the orderly succession of events. Re-
volutions, however powerful to remove obstacles,
contain in a less degree the constructive principle.
They destroy the obstacle, and the formative forces
then proceed with the new creation ; but this may
require centuries for its development. But if a re-
volution establish some institution or form of go-
vernment which is not the effect of the formative
force, or in harmony with surrounding conditions,
the new creation will soon perish. All sanguine
expectations of the rapid evolution of the new forms
of government, in nations ill-prepared by their an-
tecedent conditions, are not warranted by the expe-
rience of history, and generally all sudden transitions
in national polity, as, for example, from the go-
vernment of one class to that of another, unless
brought about by the irresistible force of the growth
of intelligence and virtue, partake of the character
of revolutions, and of their weakness in the presence
of surrounding conditions not in harmony with
them. One of two things would therefore be con-
sequent on such rapid transitions—the new condi-
tion must subordinate all surrounding farces to
itself, or it must perish. The triumphs of intel-
ligence over matter have been accompanied by
manifestations of a higher moral sensibility as to
the condition of the masses of our fellow-country-
men, which has tended to inspire a religious ardour
for their elevation. This has been manifest in nume-
rous efforts of civilisation. For example—a mitiga-
tion of the severity of the penal code, founded on a
recognition of the truth that, however terror may
act as a deterrent, it has little or no reformatory
power. In the improvement of prison discipline and
reformatory training for the young. In the amend-
ment of the laws for the relief of indigence, whereby
the traces of serfdom will ere long be removed from
the most pauperised portions of the indigent classes.
The regenerative power of education has been applied
to the children of paupers, and we are, I trust, on
the eve of providing for impotency, sickness, and
age, with Christian solicitude. In the first steps
towards an obligatory system of national education,

in which we have only very partially recognised si
what is needed for the preparation of an intelligent
freeman for the discharge of his duties as a citizen.
In the emancipation of labour from all restraints on
its association, and in the freedom of all trade and
industry. In the extention of the municipal suf-
f rage, thus creating in the borough a school for the
training of the people in the discharge of political
duties. In the cheapening of justice in all the smaller
disputes which affect the condition of the labourer,
small householder, and humble tradesman. In the
spread of political education by means of freedom I
of meeting for public discussion ; and by a cheap
press, which has, by its general enlightenment and
nigh morality, become the most truly conservative
of all our institutions. In the universal publicity
of all political discussion, whether in or out of
Parliament, making the press like the market-
place in which Socrates disputed, or the forum in
which Cato, Cicero, or Ca3sar pleaded. For our own
manual labour class, barely emancipated from the
semi-barbarism of preceding ages, the Reformation
did little by means of schools, yet this was the only
means the original Saxon idea of personal dig-
nity and civil freedom could be attained by the poor.
The Reformation did not extend this form of free-
dom to them. It is not improbable that the " iron-
sides" who fought with Cromwell had received some
training in the grammar schools. They had at least
been trained by the congregation in the dialectics
of the Calvinistic doctrine, and through it in a
stern sense of duty and personal rights. But the
common people, with thig exception, continued to
be
immersed in the consequences of serfdom. The
serf had been the chattel of his lord. His descen-
dants bad nothing to do during the feudal period
with the local government of the tything, or parish,
or hundred,
any participation in su
Probably the villeins did not rise to
he
government until a very
late period of the Tudor reigns. Those who had
constituted the folkmorte,or who were sent to the
wittenagemot, were
freemen,
shires, n.The burgesses of
towns and the electors
of the res, were certainly
Saxon
neither serfs nor villeins. Theidea of liberty
was therefore consistent with the slavery
ancient ery of the serf.
Institutions, whose roots were in o
polity, had a representative constitution Saxon
the serf played no part, and in which the in
which
vitlei-
only gradually rose to participate, and that
joia of
just in
proportion as he was admitted to the possession
personal property independently of the lord of the
soil. The gradual transition from the occupation ofe
land by villeinage to the cultivation of the " lean" or
loan land, and the freedom of the tenant to migrate,
to carry with him his acquisitions, and acquire land
as a personal possession, are chief steps of advance of
the villeins to the class of small tenant-farmers such
as now exist, and to the establishment of the inde-
pendent class of yeomen and statesmen who culti-
vated their own land. We thus recognise some of
the sources of the present condition of half-paupe-
rised agricultural labourers, and unlettered small
tenant-farmers, and the causes of their unfitness by
the want of intelligence and independence, to dis-

charge beneficially to the commonwealth the poli-
tical duties of freemen. They are still, politically
speaking, the thralls of the possessors of the soil. In
proportion as they are admitted to the possession of
the franchise the landlord augments his personal
power—but no privilege is, for the time being, ex-
tended to the people. The result of the extension
of the franchise to any class thus enfeebled by tra-
ditional dependence, by ignorance, and habits either
sensual or servile, results in its political subser-
viency. In like manner the elite of the manual
labour class have aided in the growth of the public
polity, by their disinterested sympathy with other
principles capable of a wide application. The ex-
tension of the franchise to the middle classes by
the Reform Bill, the extinction of the slave ;trade,
and the emancipation of the' slaves in our colo-
nies, received from them a wise and generous
support. Though they, like other classes, are re-
sponsible, both in times past and at present—for the
most persistent opposition to the adoption of well
ascertained principles in industry and trade, yet they
were led by a true class interest, to appreciate, before
the pure economists, the economic as well as the
social value of a shortening of the hours of labour
in factories ; and though they did not promote, they
assented to the compulsory provisions for the educa-
tion of their children, which were inserted in the
Factories Regulation Acts. In all these measures,
and in many others, they have co-operated with a
portion of the middle classes, led by men capable
of a philosophic or philanthropic view of all the
interests concerned. But the independent and spon-
taneous action of the working classes, though in
many of its earliest and some of its recent manifes-
tations it has been deformed by the errors insepar-
able from such efforts in an unlettered class, has
given proof of a power of organisation and asso-
ciated action, which, whether for good or ill, cannot
but be regarded as important elements in the social
organisation of any nation, and especially of one in
which industry, commerce, and agriculture are
among the main sources of national prosperity and
power. One of the highest qualities of statesman-
ship consists in the power to think calmly in the
midst of popular excitement. This faculty re-
sembles that of great generals, whose genius re-
ceives its highest inspiration from battle, and is to
he contrasted with the impulsiveness of the orator,
whose imagination or passion is fired by popular
excitement and overcomes his reason. A great
statesman knows how majestic and irresistible is the
operation of the intelligent convictions of a culti-
vated nation—the seed of which convictions he may
have deliberately sown. He calmly watches their
development—he wisely fosters their growth—he
waits like the husbandman for the harvest. As no
impatience can hasten the gradual operation of the
natural forces so no insensate outbreak of turbu-
lence can bring about the true development of the
national policy, which is the fruit, not of physical
force, but of the highest intelligence and virtue. A
great statesman will therefore strive to assuage the
sense of political injustice, and to prevent the de-
structive outbreaks of passionate misery, and will
calmly lead the ablest and best among his fellow
countrymen to redress all proven wrong, and peace-
fully to remove every obstacle to the development
of all the institutions of freedom.