The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1871-05-09
OUR OWN REDS.
From the Pail Mall Gazette.

From the Pau MdU Gazette.
When we have laughed as much as seems
right and natural at the various exhibitions
of republicanism which have been Haunted
before the country of late, the laughter will
cease and the republicanism will remain. To
us, as to most other men, these displays seom
very puerile, and their promoters ignorant
and vain to the last degree; nevertheless we
are not at all inclined to regard them with in-
difference. Disdain for boyish agitetors with
red rags, for grand Trafalgar Square meetings
of a hundred bowling malcontents, even for
the republican clubs which are being orga
nlzed in various parts of the country, may
be justified by what we know of them; but
there may be future even for these, and no
man of sense can regard that circumstance
with contempt. Republicanism is not pecu-
liar growth of French soil. There is
no natien in Europe where the spirit of re-
publicanism is more prevalent than in Eng
land as all the governance of the country
testifes AS might be expected, therefore,
in all our great towns there is a certain ex-
treme element, which from time to time
gathers to head, makes a more or less for
midable display of existence, and disperses
again. To us it seems probable that this
striving, discontented Red element is about to
make another appearance, of which the new
club arrangements and st. James Hall riot
ings, and Nottingham fervors are the merest
beginnings. Nor is there anything to be sur
prised at in the portent. Where nothing else
grows weeds grow. The unfailing vigor of
sectarisnism has given life to the discussion
of popular education, but all political energy
of other kinds seems to have departed. Since
the death of Lord Palmerston, political life
has languished more and more in the middle
and upper classes of ociety, till at last
it is almost extinct We live in the
midst of great events - of great and
pregnant events for ourselves as well as for
other nations; but to the mass of tolerably
educated Englishmen they have no more than
the sort of interest that was aroused by the
crimes of Mr. and Mrs. Manning. Of politi-
cal and patriotic interest we discover little or
none anywhere; nothing but dulness of per-
ception and deadness of spirit. Our own
share in the history of the last nine months
is not generally understood to be of any inn
portance even. There is a common impress
sion that England has taken creditable part
in certain amiable correspondences, and that
is all that IS commonly known or supposed in
the matter. Whist can be more natural, at a
time of such dulness and impotence of spirit
among what ire called the governing classes,
than the gradu reappearance on the scene
of our own Reds? Their turn has plainly
come again, under such circumstances; they
do but fill the political vacuum.
And there are several reasons why the re-
appearance of these agitators might have
been expected under almost any circum-
stances. Republicanism is the natural growth
of towns its most numerous and ardent dis
ciples are the poor of cities. Since the COL
lapse of its last demonstrations in 1913, the
population of all our great manufacturing
towns, of sll our various ''seats of industry, "
has largely increased. Free trade, and
the natural attractions of great! cities for
the surrounding population, have made
enormous additions to the classes which,
being very poor, are prone to discomfort;
and, herdIug together with their little
miseries made more grievous by city squalor,
freely breed a keen spirit of subversion
True, we have heard little of this spirit for
nearly generation; but it is impossible to
doubt that il exists, and has never ceased to
exist, in a more or less potential shape. All
our towns are not as Nottingham is; hut the
Nottingham spirit is to be found in every
similar community in the kingdom, and is
everywhere capable of expansion. And for
the reasons we have Just stated when it
does again expand it will be seen to fill a
larger space in the country, to occupy and
animate greater number of minds, than will
compare with previous demonstrations of a
like nature.
1t is further to the purpose that of late
years a more considerable quota to the ranks
of extreme radicalsm has been made by
young men of education and ideas. Ten
years ago, it would have been harder to find
two minds to match with Shelley's Eve speak
of the political side of Shelley than to find
twenty now, amongst men of the same class
and similar breeding. We are not thinking
now of Mr.. Auberon Herbert, whose sins
have been enormously magnifed. Nor are
we thinking OF the Comtist agitators, though
certainly they are not To be omitted from the
account; since they make known to us q
| spirit as reckless, as cool-blooded, as well
leayened with political hate, as unscrupulous
| in the machination of turbulauce, as ever
possessed the revolutionaries of any age oil
uation-all which we shall see fully displayed
/ if malign chance gives them that ascen
dancy over working men which they
strive SO hard for. But apart from these emf
nently calculating fanatics, who though vigor
| Gus are few and propagate their kind slowly
| largely increasing number of well-educated
we.ltrained, active-minded young men are
eager democrats, republicans, revolutionists
1t is the only political growth in the classes t.
which they belong We cannot believe tha
this signifies nothing, or that nothing will
come of it as one of many symptoms of frest
republican or revolutionary innings"
! Another important consideration for thost
who think it worth while to discuss the mat
ter is-not the vast extension of the suffrage
made in 1867, though that is of great import
ance too-but the way in which class poll
tics are now cultivated by working men
About Imperial politics they seem tC
care no more than the rest of the population
Just now-rather less perhaps. They seen
to have discharged their minds of all the
superstition which beheid a panacea for ig
noranee and poverty in the ballot, trienuia
Parliaments, payment of members, and
household suffrage. Whatever may have
Ealrw - IL