by poor-rate could have been exchanged, was two hundred and forty-thousand quarters less in 1816 than in 1814, and two hundred thousand quarters less in 1816 than in 1815. To put the efficiency of the poor-rates upon the same level in 1816 as they were in 1814, by the aid of voluntary subscriptions, the committee of the London Tavern ought to have raised as much money as would have purchased two hundred and fifty thousand quarters of wheat, which at the time of this great meeting would have cost more than a million sterling. We mention these facts, not to make ourselves obnoxious to the reproof then levelled against the reformers, that they realised the old story of the Needy Knife-grinder and the Friend of Humanity, but to point out the folly of deceiving our own consciences as to the power of alms-giving to afford adequate relief in great periods of national distress. The first duty of the capitalist is to understand what are the real claims of labour under ordinary circumstances, and what the amount of assistance that can be rendered under extraordinary contingencies. It is the duty of government so to shape its policy that the necessary inequalities of demand and supply shall not be rendered more oppressive by false legislation. All contention for interests of classes or individuals-all blindness to the dreadful calamity of an unemployed, inadequately paid, starving, and therefore dangerous population are best exhibited in their fatal consequences, when it is seen how totally incompetent is the heartiest exercise of private benevolence to remedy great public suffering. The economical mistakes of such private benevolence would be matters of ridicule if they were not so awful in their delusions. In 1816, hand corn-mills were recommended for the employment of the poor, to supersede the labour of the miller; and women and even men were actually employed to shell beans in the fields, to supersede the more efficient labour of the thrasher. Minor schemes were recommended in London, and published to the world authoritatively, as remedies for the absence of profitable employment. Of these the most notable were the making of cordage out of hop-bines and weeds; the gathering of rushes to manufacture candles from the grease-pot; the plaiting of baskets out of flags; and the mixture of fireballs out of clay and cinders, to supersede coals. It is perfectly clear that if these employments could be found profitable by the sale of the articles produced, the regular employment in rope-making, or candle-making, or basketmaking, or coal-mining, would have been diminished. Even the soup-kitchens, which in 1816 were set up through the country, to avert starvation, had their evils. The recipients of the benevolence were discontented with its limited amount. At Glasgow some imaginary insult offered by a doler of the soup to the more unfortunate of that large community, stung the people to madness; the soup-kitchen, with its coppers and ladles, was destroyed; the outrage swelled to riot; the military were called in; and for two days the populous city was exposed to a contest between the soldiers and the mob. At Dundee the people relieved themselves in the old summary way of plunder; a hundred shops were ransacked. CHAPTER V. Parliamentary Reform-Writings of Cobbett-Hampden Clubs— LORD BACON, discoursing of the second cause of sedition'discontentments'-says; 'There is in every state, as we know, two portions of subjects, the noblesse and the commonalty. When one of these is discontent, the danger is not great; for common people are of slow motion, if they be not excited by the greater sort; and the greater sort are of small strength, except the multitude be apt and ready to move of themselves.' We at once perceive that the experience of Lord Bacon was limited to a totally different state of society than that of modern England. On one hand was 'the noblesse,' 'the greater sort"-the makers of laws, the exclusive possessors of power; on the other, the commonalty,' the common people,' 'the multitude-strong in union, feeble in individuality. It required a century and a half to constitute an efficient € third class-the middle class-the bourgeoisie of the French. The commonalty was then cut into two sections-the most influential of the two standing between the higher class and the lower class. The term lower class,' or 'lower classes,' is gone out of use. The term is thought not complimentary to the democracy, and so we say 'the working-class,' which is less precise, and conveys false notions. The union which Lord Bacon exhibited as the most fearful to the sovereign power, was that which sprang from the common discontent of the nobles and the people. A monarch, according to the great imaginative philosopher, should be the Jupiter whom Pallas counselled to call Briareus, with his hundred arms, to his aid. Sure of the good-will of the common people, he was safe. We see how all this consists with the government of the Tudors and the first Stuart; how strictly it represents the attributes of an imperfect civilization; how much remained to be developed before the more favoured of fortune, the more complete in education and intelligence of the commonalty,' could be raised up into a new class. The far grander problem of the full development of the class lowest in point of wealth and power-of the class highest in point of numbers-of the most truly important class with reference to the happiness and safety of modern societies-this problem is little advanced toward solution in our own day. It scarcely formed an element in the habitual consideration of a legislator thirty years ago. And yet the agitation of this class convulsed our whole social system at that period. Those struggles were, in truth, the first moving forces of the great changes which have since taken place in the political position of the class next above the masses; and, as a natural consequence, indirectly in their own position. Up to the close of 1816, the spirit of parliamentary reform was seldom evoked in the British parliament. When the spirit was occasionally raised, upon the presentation of some stray petition, it had no alarms for the most timid, and very few consolations for the most ardent. It was a good quiet spirit in the cellarage'-an ‘old mole'-that called out, in antiquated phrase, about Magna Charta and the Bill of Rights; and the House of Commons listened as to some gabble which concerned it not, and went on with its proper work of Whig and Tory fence, conducted upon the most approved principles of the first masters of the science. But the worthy pioneer' got above ground in 1816, and, when he was fairly loosened to the open sky, he was not quite so tame, and innocent, and stupid a spirit as his ordinary supporters and his systematic revilers had been in the habit of believing him to be. The House of Commons was not generally popular in 1816. We have better evidence for the fact than that of the pamphleteering or oratorical champions of reform. Mr. Hallam, a calm, constitutional Whig of that day, rejoices over the defeat of the ministry on the propertytax, chiefly because that decision had removed 'the danger of increasing the odium under which the House of Commons already labours among a large class of people, by so decidedly resisting the wishes of the nation.' And yet the call for parliamentary reform seems to have made itself very feebly heard in the Lower House at this period. With the exception of some four or five petitions that produced very slight discussion, it would scarcely be thought, from an inspection of the parliamentary debates, that such a question agitated any part of the nation at all. On one occasion, in June, some members spoke very briefly upon the subject. One complained of the apathy with which the question was regarded in England; another (Mr. Brougham) mentioned the cause as 'opposed by some, deserted by others, and espoused by persons whose conduct excited no small degree of disgust out of doors.' But from this time the name of parliamentary reform became, for the most part, a name of terror to the government-to the elevated by rank and wealth-to the most influential of the middle classes. It became fearful from the causes which would have made it contemptible in ordinary times. It was 'espoused by persons whose conduct excited no small degree of disgust out of doors.' It passed away from the patronage of a few aristocratic lovers of popularity, to be advocated by writers of 'twopenny trash,' and to be discussed and organised by 'Hampden Clubs' of hungering philanthropists and unemployed weaver-boys.' Let us hear the evidence upon this matter of a remark € able man-a man of real native talent, and, like a very large number of his class, of honest intentions: At this time [1816] the writings of William Cobbett suddenly became of great authority; they were read on nearly every cottage hearth in the manufacturing districts of South Lancashire, in those of Leicester, Derby, and Nottingham; also in many of the Scottish manufacturing towns. Their influence was speedily visible; be directed his readers to the true cause of their sufferings-misgovernment; and to its proper corrective-parliamentary reform. Riots soon became scarce, and from that time they have never obtained their ancient vogue with the labourers of this country. 'Let us not descend to be unjust. Let us not withhold the homage which, with all the faults of William Cobbett, is still due to his great name. 'Instead of riots and destruction of property, Hampden Clubs were now established in many of our large towns, and the villages and districts around them; Cobbett's books were printed in a cheap form; the labourers read them, and thenceforward became deliberate and systematic in their proceedings. Nor were there wanting men of their own class to encourage and direct the new converts; the Sunday-schools of the preceding thirty years had produced many working-men of sufficient talent to become readers, writers, and speakers in the village meetings for parliamentary reform; some also were found to possess a rude poetic talent, which rendered their effusions popular, and bestowed an additional charm on their assemblages; and by such various means, anxious listeners at first, and then zealous proselytes, were drawn from the cottages of quiet nooks and dingles, to the weekly readings and discussions of the Hampden Clubs.' Cobbett himself, on the 21st December 1816, wrote as follows: The country, instead of being disturbed, as the truly seditious writers on the side of corruption would fain make us believe; instead of being "irritated" by the agitation of the question of reform, is kept by the hope which reform holds out to it, in a state of tranquillity, wholly unparalleled in the history of the world, under a |