Extreme and revolutionary as the Reform Bill of 1832 appeared to Tories like the duke of Wellington and Sir Robert Inglis, it was regarded as wholly inadequate by the great mass of English workingmen, who were still excluded from voting by its provisions. Accordingly agitation for additional reform immediately began, especially in the great manufacturing districts, and some of the most advanced Radicals attacked practically every point in the English system of government. Although their demands were later reduced to six main points, - universal suffrage, secret ballot, annual Parliaments, payment of members of Parliament, abolition of property qualifications for members of Parliament, and equal electoral districts, in order that they might be more effectively urged upon the House of Commons, the leaders of the Chartist movement really contemplated the most thoroughgoing reforms of every kind, some of which were set forth in a little pamphlet entitled The People's Charter, published in London in 1832, from which a few extracts are given here.

Precedent

the Radica

The rejection of precedent and authority as a guide in legis- 292. Refor lation, jurisprudence, etc.-" the tolerating nothing ancient demanded that reason does not sanction, and the shrinking from no as set fort novelty to which reason may conduct." in 1832 in

pamphlet

(The history of precedent is simply this: that when despo-called The tism had treated the people sufficiently ill, the past, under the People's name of precedent, was impudently erected into a guide for Charter the future; robbery, fraud, and oppression consequently became the law of the land, and antiquity was adduced to sanctify its

cherector

Precedent

cly will conerally be found to

Aristocratic Government

The abolition of aristocratic and exclusive, plundering inefficient government, and the substitution of representa and liberal, cheap and efficient government.

(Government, on the old system, is an assumption of po for the aggrandizement of itself, and measures its prosper by the quantity of taxes it extorts; on the new, it is a dele tion of power for the benefit of society, and proves its exc lence by the small revenue it requires.)

The adoption especially of universal suffrage (for the ma excluded from this is a slave); of the [secret] ballot (for th man who cannot thus vote may be oppressed by the superio to whom he refuses his vote); and of annual Parliaments (fo the man from whom this is withheld, is destined for sale during so many years).

Taxes on Knowledge

The abolition especially of all taxes on paper, printed and unprinted, and of all official embarrassment to the printing and publishing of newspapers, and to their cheap conveyance by post.

(Despotic administrations have heaped taxes upon paper, and in particular upon newspapers, for the purpose of placing political knowledge beyond the reach of the poorer classes, and of thereby rendering it easy to plunder the people without the danger of exposure.)

The establishment of a system of national education, unfettered and untainted by religious tenets.

Peerage

The abolition of hereditary peerage and hereditary legislation.

(The application of such a principle to the government of nations is an insult to common sense; and a hereditary legislator is a far greater absurdity than a hereditary poet. These legislators are, in fact, a few hundreds in number, and these unqualified to legislate, because, being entitled by the mere

accident of birth to a monopoly of honors and indulgences, they need make no effort to obtain them, their intellectual powers are gradually lost, and their minds are at last utterly debased.)

Privileges

The abolition of privileged classes.

(A peer may send and receive all letters free, may frank those of his friends, and may send by post on Sunday as on other days. He may vote by proxy, though not present at a debate, and ignorant of its purport. He may give a verdict, not on oath, but honor, as if he alone were honorable, and other men were villains. He may not be arrested, made bankrupt, or have his estate sequestrated. He may, with perfect impunity, defraud his creditors, by borrowing, buying houses and lands, and leaving them to whom he pleases, as the lenders cannot touch his real estate. It is in his interest, and that of the aristocracy in general, that game laws have been made, so peculiarly replete with insult and cruelty.)

Titles

Kingship

The abolition of the evils with which kingship is accompanied.

(Mental or moral character, in hereditary kingship, must necessarily be a matter of perfect indifference, as by its means the very worst man may, and often does, succeed to the same power. Kings have every motive to remain ignorant; they generally are so in a degree that would surprise even a peasant; and the report of their having any sort of talent is always a mere flattery of courtiers.

The intellectual organs of kings are so small, and their faculties are so feeble, as always to border on fatuity. See this explained in "The Rights of Nations." Fatuity has, conse

11

A king will, therefore, be found to be in reality the m useless official person, and to be scarcely necessary in a single act of the government; while the members of his fam -who, in England, are often low-minded, cunning, a tyrannically disposed Germans-are of just the same val to the State as any similar number of paupers to be four throughout the kingdom.)

Insolence

The interdiction of all insulting terms and slavish language as "subjects," "humbly petitioning," "praying," etc.

(The imposing grandeur of the crown and their own profi are at once consulted, when the aristocracy meanly consent to Parliament being a grant or boon from kings, — to its being called "my Parliament," and when they basely solicit the king to grant to the assembly the liberty of speech, as is the case with the House of Commons.)

The Church

The prevention of public plunder by the priesthood. (The English are dupes to their priesthood in a degree that is quite incredible to strangers. There is actually no other nation, however debased by superstition, in which the clergy enjoy such prodigious wealth. There is no other nation in which such enormous Church property supports so unprincipled and immoral a priesthood.

Besides tithes, that tax on the produce of land, animals, and industry, that impost on labor and capital, that penalty on agriculture, and prohibition to improve inferior lands, the priestly order in England has enormous revenues, amounting in all to £9,459,565.

As about 2152 clergymen do all the duty, and as their average income is about £300 per annum each, it is evident that the total thus formed, namely £1,974,503, should have sufficed for the maintenance of all the clergy.)

Abolition of State Church and State religion, leaving priests, parsons, preachers, ministers, etc., to be paid by those who choose to employ them.

The cessation of every species of persecution for religious opinions, and the punishment of such persecution when exercised by the followers of any creed.

Quite inevitably the bitter attacks of the Chartists on the government and the clergy called forth equally bitter denunciations from their opponents. Indeed, the whole country was flooded with controversial literature of the most violent type, and the horror which Conservative clergymen felt at the progress of Chartism is well illustrated by a very popular tract entitled Chartism Unmasked, written by the Reverend Evan Jenkins.

attack on

That the Church of England and Chartism totally oppose 293. A each other, produce wholly different effects, and lead to widely clergyman' and utterly different destinations, will appear if we just con- Chartism sider to what they each lead.