The Portland daily press., 1874-11-12
THE MERCANTILE COURSE.
Charles Bradlaugh ON Republication in
England.

laugh, the English rough-riding reformer.
l The hall was well filed, and the audience were
not disappointed although raised to the high
est pitch Of expectation by the high praise
which Wendell Phillips had given Bradlaugh
in advance. The orator is about six feet high,
Of fine, commanding figure magnetic voice,
| and hand that has world Oh change1ul ex-
| preston in itself. Whatever may be said of
| Bradlaugh's sentiments, it cannot be denied
that he has the charm and grace OF the orator.
| The aim of the lecture was to show the posi-
bility and necessity of Repub,icanism in Eng
land.
| First He started with the deiaiton of Re-
| public: ga Republic is that state in which the
government is for the people and by the people,
| In Republic every citizen must think that his
own political vitality is necessary 10 the body
polite; that he is a part of the government,
and that what pertains to the government per.
tains not to set of professional politicians,
but the individual citizen, personally. This
sense of individual responsibility presupposes
certain degree of knowledge and intelligence.
There was not enough of this popular intelli-
gence in Greece or Rome to build Republic
on and so Greece and Rome never had Re-
public. For the same reason there never was
Republic in Florence or Milan or Lucca or
Venice; those were mock Republics, simply
guilds or associations. France never had
Republic; in 1889 the great French leaders
were not Republicans; Robespierre, Marat and
others appealed to the king and to the mobiles,
and to almost everybody else, but it never oc-
CURED to them to appeal to the high sent'-
ments and instincts of the people, and so they
missed the first elements of Republicanism;
the people were not worthy to be appealed to;
they were half starved and poverty stricken;
their rebellion was revolt of the belly ana not
of the brain.
Spain never had Republic, although Cas-
telar is bold. pure and true, STILL he is unaided,
and no one man can make Republlcanism; a
man cannot make movements, movements
must make the man. There was no Republic
in England under Cromwell: it was simply
grand despotism. Even in America there never
was Republic while slavery existed, and it is
uncertain whether there be one now. There is
a grand possibility of one,s but it does not exist
unless each man feels and asserts his own po-
litical vitality.
Second The speaker then discussed the pos
sibility of Republic in England. Parliament
is supreme; the English monarchy is not strict
ly hereditary, it is parliamentary, constituted,
guarded, memmed in by the people acting
through their parliament. Parliament can do
what it pleases, and there is no power to say
that any act is unconstitutional Rulers are
made and unmade by enactment Only thr-
teen out of thirty three kings, from William
the Conqueror to George I'LL, were hereditary
kings, the others were all made kings by par
lament. Queen Victoria is on tie throne to-
day because in 1859 statute was passed which
declared the throne was vacant, which said
that James III. was not king, and which ig-
nored James Ills son. The parliament dis
possessed Charles l.
Here the speaker referred with quiet bitter
satire, to their Prince of Wales and then said:
SIN England we are not worthy to be Kings
and Queens ourselves and so when we want
new ones we import EN-" He developed and
elaborated with great force the idea
that the right to alter the ~, succession
he said was upheld by all the greatest of the
English statesmen in every age, by Sidney, by
Lord Hardinge, and even by Pitt, "a tory,
said the orator, "and not rough demagogue
like myself"
Third. Is there republican spirit in Eng
land? Mr.. Brad laugh showed clearly that
there is; not in Windsor or in Grosvenor
Square, but among the working classes in Man
chester, Birmingham and the Clyde. Even
the Spectator few weeks since anticipated
that there may be a republic in England soon,
and says there is right to discuss the question.
In Birmingham last August, at meeting
which MI. Bradlaugh was addressing, the
question was put to the six thousand people
present: SIS republic desirable?" and only
nineteen hands voted in the negative, while
forest of hands voted for a republic. And
still England is not ripe for republic yet; her
people are too poor and too ignorant.
Fourth Why does the movement exist?
Because, for one reason, taxation has become
unbearable; it has increased in comparatively
few years from e5,000,000 to e56,0O0,00O, and
has been changed from land where it belongs,
and where it used to be, to labor where it is
oppressive and where it never belonged. He
showed that taxes were enormous, principally
on account of the royal family, and on account
of wars, both of which are engines of despot-
ism. Que thousand two hundred and fifty mill
lions of pounds were spent in the early part of
this century to stab liberty to death in France,
SO that the wave might not roll across the
channel and give England freedom.
One hundred ard sixty families own half of
England and four-fifths of Scotland Under
the present system land has rights, but the
people have none.
But the people are learning, and they will
lears, that there are no rights of property
which can conflict with the rights Of human
life. Honest industry will prevail over demon
allied poverty and the pillow and the spade
shall go through the paltry parchments that
the rich hand-hOlders put in the way OF re-
form:
tor, 1--WE will down.with peerages; if the crown
stands in the way we will break the crown"
1t is vain to attempt to reproduce the fine
veins Of satire and sarcasm which adorned the
lecture. He detailed every varied form of do
nestle cussedness with which the royal family
had occupied their elegant leisure, and at the
end of each particular description he remarked,
land yet Disraei says that the royal family
represents the domestic felicity OF the Eng1sh
people.' He said that the English nobility
lie their sons in life by the following rule:
IT The sons be clever they shall be governors,
| judges and such; if they be average they shall
be Wears and the like; if they be fools they
shall be foreign ambassadors.
The lecture was too radical to be popular,
even in America, but won great applause by
the force and magnetism of the orator.
G,;veroooI and Iondou and Globe Insur-
ance Company.
In reply to an item in the morning papers,
stating, in substance, that the directors Of the
above company recently decided to close up
their agencies ia America, and that orders had