The Warrington Examiner. — 1872-04-13 (Warrington, Cheshire, England)

THE AIM OF REFORM.  BY GOLDWIN EMITIT.  THE last number of the Fortnightly Review contains an article by Mr. Goldwin Smith, to which we would especially direct the attention of our readers. Such among them as have time and opportunity cannot do better than study the article in its entirety, and be sure that its close argument, its rich freshness, its bitter invective, will amply repay the cost of its perusal; but for the information of those who may not have the same advantage, we purpose to reprint some of the more striking passages in this admirable Philippic. Our difficulty is only which part to choose, and the fear that by extracts we can give only an insufficient idea of the power of the whole. Proverbially, a looker on sees more of the game than the players, and Mr. Goldwin Smith, in his self-imposed retirement in the United States, can see the weakness of our parties here. He begins by pointing out that the popular party in England seems to I be now swerving from its original aim, which was to put an end to class-government and to establish a Government of the nation. He shows that to raise the great social questions, without having first by the establishment of a national Government provided a political body capable of solving such questions, would only throw the nation into convulsions, and he thus describes how it is that class-government has been perpetuated. "The citadel of class-government is the House of Lords. Directly by its legislative veto, and to a still greater extent indirectly by its political and social influence, the House of Lords prevents the public good from being the paramount object of legislation. And the House of Lords is an institution which has long out-lived its use, if even it had a use, and has for centuries been, and it is now. a mere incubus on the nation. We are so much in love with Development that, perhaps, we sometimes take disease for growth. Feudalism could hardly be necessary as it was not universal. But as a matter of fact, it was a stage in the history of most of the European nations. While it lasted its chiefs were workers. Their lordships, originally territorial officers, required services of rough duty, performed under penalty of ejectment by a stronger hand; they led the people in war, and judged it, after their fashion, in peace, and being workers and real members of the social system, they were reformers not unselfish, but useful and progressive in their day; they extorted the Great Charter and rough-hewed a free constitution. They did politically, socially, and industrially, the iron services of an iron time. When the last hours of their system arrived—when, with the growth of great nations, of liberal learning, of a more rational morality, Feudalism paled before the nation and humanity, the serf-owning aristocracy of England, now a mere obstruction and a source of anarchy, found a grave, dug bY its own passions, in the Wars of the Roses, as the slave-holding aristocracy of the Southern State found a grave, dug in like manner by its own passions, in secession. Into its place crept an oligarchy of landlords, the creatures of Henry VIII, and his partners in the plunder of the monasteries—knaves and sycophants, steeped in public rapine and judicial murder. Such is tL. :-.7lgust origin of the pres( nt aristocracy of England. Of the old feudal aristocracy barely enough survived the sword of the civil war and the axe of the Tudors to form a link bqtween the feudal barons of the old time and the titled land grabbers of the new. . . . . Under the Stuarts the number of peers was rapidly increased mainly by the sale of peerages, by infamous court favouritism, or by way of reward for infamous services rendered to favourites. A notable addition was made by the harem of Charles 11. . . . Peerages  were a regular part of the bribery fund- of all the corrupt leaders of Parliamentary faction throughout the eighteenth century. But the largest importation of all was the phalanx of borough-mongers purchased by to support him in Government by prerogative and an oligarchic war. On boroughmongers were bestowed the highest titles of the peerage, whilst the lowest was tossed to Nelson. Thus, from age to age, since the days of Henry