The Sun.
London, England, 1868-01-02 00:00:00

REVOLUTION IN ENGLAND.

The revolutionary influences which have been
continually breaking out in violence and blood-
shed on the continent, at length are beginning to
tell in these islands. The geographical position of
England, and the common sense of the nation, to-
gether with that ballast which enormous middle-
class and commercial affluence creates, have served
up to the present as a powerful check to those
democratic aspirations which begin with the fana-
ticism of, those who have nothing to lose, and gra-
dually mounts, like fire, up the social scale, till the
whole of a country is in conflagration. But by
degrees a stronger influence than the power of the
middle and upper classes, and a force which is not
to be confined to any particular sea-board, has
made its way into the heart of the country. Logic
and the appreciation of the effects of principle, are
not points which hold out to the Englishman an
object of very interesting investigation. And
though his ignorance of, or his want of sympathy
with such studies may have been in one sense a
safeguard against any very violent social revolu-
tions, at the same time it opens the gates to this
serious danger--that he may, without being aware
of it, be the sower of the seeds of his own destruc-
tion. Englishmen, it seems, will not see that prin-
ciples cannot stop short of their ultimate conclu-
sions. If once they are set in motion, they inevit-
ably work themselves out. This is a fact which is
not only attested by principles of philosophy, bat
is proved without an exception in the region of
practice.

Moreover, what is equally true, and possibly still
more evident, is the fact,that those principles which
are the most popular, and which adjust themselves
most freely to the passions, the rapacity, and the
" aspirations " of the masses, are the very ones
which, when once implanted in the popular mind,
not so much take root like seed as burn like fire
There is no element in creation more combustible
than the mind of a needy multitude, with just so
much education to take in theories of self-aggran-
disement, and just so little real religion as will
minister texts of Scripture to justify their claims
to the property of the rich. That there exists in
this country a vast multitude which occupies the
position just described, we suppose no man of
any observation will for a moment doubt. Indeed,
the minds of the masses in this country are in a
.position which probably renders them more easily
affected than foreigners can be by the principles of
disorder which are in keeping with their aspirations
Tfiey are poorer, harder worked, more ill-used,
reduced to a far more servile slavery, especially
in the mining and manufacturing districts, than is
the case with any other people in the world, in-
cluding the slaves under American drivers in South
America. As to religion, either they are totally
ignorant of its first principles, and the first dictates
of morality, or their minds are possessed with a
superstitious fanaticism which acts violently on the
il,erves, and manifests itself in Psalm singing,
hymns, ‘.‘ conversions," dealings with " the spirit,"
and those other varieties of Methodism which make
up the religion of the English "poor." The rich
are lar above them, and to an immense extent alto-
gether isolated from their sympathies ; a fact which
has the simplest proof in the world—namely, the
invention of " workhouses," and the mechanical
relieving the distressed—a method which assuredly
would never have been adopted if the tendency of
the wealthy classes had been to sympathize with
poverty and disease.
Now, there are two classes of men who act most
powerfully on and educate the multitude -- the
leaders of the country, and the exponents of the
people. By the leaders of the country miee mean
those who are responsible to the nation for th right
government of the country, members
hoef iParliament,f
aaid particularly the Ministers
In power. By the leaders of the people we mean
those men who, belonging to the people, have by
their powers of mind and speech raised themselves
up as the exponents of the people's mind, and who,
by a greater insight into principles, are able to
lead the masses premise by premise to their logical
conclusions. Generally the popular leaders are in
advance of the most liberal leaders of the nation.
They are even on the alert to detect principles in
the action of the State which correspond to their
own revolutionary ideas, and the moment they
discover a point of contact between the two
through the force of logical sequence they attempt
to drag an unwilling Government violently in their
own direction. Where the leaders of the nation
and the leaders of the people combine in inculcat-
ing a set of principles which are in keeping with
the aspirations of the masses, the education of the
latter is begun—the spark has been thrown in
the explosion is merely a matter of time.
Now, what has been the state of the case in
England ? What has been the action of the leaders
of the nation and the leaders of the people ? What
principles have they sown in the popular mind?
Have they been teaching the doctrines of autho-
rity, order, submission to law, inviolability of

private and public rights ? If there are seeds of

revolution in the popular mind, who put them
there? Whence.proceeded those principles which

have resulted in the outrage of the Fenian ring-

Leaders in Manchester, the rescue of Kelly, the

avowed sympathy of a London mob with the mur-

derous attack on .A.l'Donald, in the meditated attack
upon Chester Caste, in the bread riots in Exeter

and Teignmouth, in the doings and sayings of a
Bradlaugh, a Broadhead, a Crookes, a Lucraft, an

Odger, a Cremer, a Dickson, and a Merriman ?

Whence come the trades' unions associated with

the most revolutionary section of continental dis-
order, and the most bloody deeds of home violence ?
Whence proceed the liberty with which a Murphy

may bring misery and agony in the homes of the
poor, and cut: their hearts out by the vilest and

most odious attacks on their religion? Whence
comes it that a mob of ruffians impede ourthorough-
fares with seditious processions, and that prison

walls arc blown down, houses shaken to the ground,

and innocent men, women, and children killed or

maimed for life in the public streets of the capital

of the commercial world ? Have the people re-
ceived the principles which result in these actions

from the clouds? Did they take possession of
them in their sleep ? Did they come by the minis-

trations of some supernatural power? They came
neither by chance nor by the mediation of the other
world. They have come out of this world, and
have been fashioned and perfected and put into
the minds of the masses, not by France, not by

Italy, not by some adventurer amongst the lower
orders, but by the distinct teaching of those agains
whose destruction they are now directed.
The leaders of the nation have brought this on
us. If we are driving towards anarchy or revo-

lution, let them look to it. U they fall in the

general disorder, and have to take the places of
those in whose minds they have lighted up the
fires by which they themselves are to be consumed,
let them distinctly understand that they are simply
reaping their own harvest, and that having sown
the wind they will reap the whirlwind.
For what has been their action ? What has
been the almost unanimous teaching of the leaders
of the nation ? Has it not been that men are free to
choose what government they like, that each " na-
tionality" is to constitute itself, and that robbery
and murder are not too great a price to pay for the
mere chance of completing an ideal nationality by
the wresting from others that which is theirs by
the most sacred rights acknowledged in the world,
and by an antiquity of prescription unequalled in
any empire of the West ? The Earl of Denbigh
could not restrain his noble indignation against
those leaders of the nation who could thrust into
the mouth of the first laly of the land a: statement
which he designated by the only epithet of which
it was capable of being expressed in the English
tongue. When the " powers of darkness " would
thus place themselves in " high places," and thrust
the brand of destruction into the hand of the
highest representative of order in the land, it was
time to protest, and raise a voice against the cut-
throat policy of leading minds. The foreign policy
of the English Government—which is visible to the
poorest man in the penny papers—being in accord-
ance with popular " aspirations," has been seized
hold of, and is being applied by the people to the
condition of England at home. The "people" will
reject the policy of restraint which the Government
would apply to them, and will embrace the policy of
" liberty " which that same Government would apply
to the Continent. The rulers of the nation cannot
help this. They cannot alter the action of princi-
ples, nor their relations to the conditions of the
people and the cravings of the popular mind, any
more than they can prevent the steady rising of
the tides with the palms of their hands. it is of
no use to exclaim, "It is not meant for you." The
very authority which would enforce this view upon
the people on the one hand, is cut to pieces by the
" gladius acutus" which is brandished in the other.
If two contrary principles are taught, that one,
and that one alone, will be learnt which is most
in keeping with the " aspirations,"—that is to say,
with the rapacity and passion of the popular mind.
The principles of Messrs. Bright and Potter, and
other political agitators, the views of Mr. Beales,
M.A., and Mr. Bradlaugh, though far in advance
of the views held by the Government, are much
more honest and much more consistent. The
leaders of the people do not disguise their senti-
ments, and would to-morrow, if they could do so,
change the constitution of Parliament, destroy the
House of Peers, and constitute themselves in power
as leaders of the nation. Whether their aspirations
are ever to be realised, or in what form a change of
a more radical democratic nature will be brought
to pass, of course we cannot prophesy with cer-
tainty. But this we can declare, without fear of
contradiction, that if ever a revolution takes place
in England, the cause will lie at the door, not only
of the leaders of the people, but of those whose
policy it has been to encourage principles on the
Continent which issue in destruction when applied
to ourselves.— Westnzinster Gazette.