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of that law of society that terminates in social convulsion, out of which will arise the body of military despotism, or, will emerge a new constitutional fabric, cemented in the alluvium deposited by the flood of revolution.

It is painful to reflect, that we cannot find out in the dominant party in the State, any extraordinary degree of human virtue, or a disposition to give up, voluntarily, a part of its usurped power over the fiscal or proprietary rights of the mass of the population, which would give to the surrender the grace, or at least the appearance, of a patriotic sacrifice. We can discover in the British Aristocratic power, no disposition to deliver on the altar of the country, the offering of selfish interests ;-and, in accordance with the principles of human nature, as displayed in historical action in every country and every age, we can only expect to see the power thus wielded, wrung from the possessors palsied by their terrors, or wrested from them by the moral force of opinion, or otherways.

This work, though of a decided character as respects its political views, cannot be entitled a work of a party nature, in the ordinary meaning of the

expression. Its party character consists only in the advocacy of the great party or cause of the people. Throughout the whole of it, we are not aware, that the word Radical or Chartist appears; and the two alternately dominant parties, Tories and Whigs, are only cursorily alluded to, in the consideration of the political events of the last few years. The classes of persons, who are politically called Radicals and Chartists, are, we presume, striving to escape from the effects of a system, which they find to be unjust and oppressive to themselves and families; and if, in the endeavours to save themselves, their wives, and little ones, from the discomfort and probable ruin caused by unfair laws, they should adopt certain theories of government, the party that practises the injustice towards them, and perseveres in refusing redress, is responsible before God and the country for the consequences that may ensue.

In the conflict of interests, and amidst the confusion and uproar which result, the people are bewildered, and, day after day, sink into lower depths, and feel the increasing weight of burden without knowing under whose feet they are trampled down.

In times of religious persecution or political vio

lence, when fires have consumed victims at the stake, or the scaffolds have been red with the blood of patriots, it has been the practice of those who commanded the executions, to cause drums to be beaten and shouts to be raised, to prevent the shrieks and cries from being heard, or to hush the last words of the dying patriot from rousing the feelings of his assembled countrymen. So it is with political parties in more peaceable times, when the people demand justice, and discuss the questions which most interest them. Their uproar and noise are raised, to distract attention from the main subjects; and in the halls of the legislature, hollow men are made to utter sounds, or individuals, who imitate grooms and gamekeepers, raise shouts and indecent cries to silence men whose arguments in favour of relief to the people cannot be answered. The noisy declamations in the senate, and the daily wagon-loads of newspaper discussion by party writers, are intended to drown the voice of pity, or to smother the cry of distress. The men who, in the senate filled with the ranks of party, stand up to plead a nation's wrongs, must have "their tongue in the thunder's mouth," to be heard above the clamour raised to hush the victims.

This is not the place to describe the tactics of British party-strife, but it is necessary to refer to the attempts which are at present making to give to the country the appearance of a struggle between the landed interest, and the manufacturing, commercial interest, for political influence or ascendancy; or to throw on machinery, and its uses, and its employers, the onus or responsibility of the distresses of the country; or to utter economical jargon on jointstock banks, and their effects on the monetary system and the encouragement of speculation. great mass of such argument is the ruffle of the drums, to drown the cries of the wounded and the groans of the dying!

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Let the people of Great Britain and Ireland, in the calm exercise of their common sense, bear in mind the following facts and statements.

The party or class of persons called the landed interest, have legislated for, and governed this country since the Revolution of 1688; and it is only within these twelve years that the manufacturing interest of Manchester and other places has been represented at all in the legislature. The laws, which the manufacturing classes and the vast ma

jority of the inhabitants of this country complain of, were enacted long before the date of the Reform of Parliament. The very laws, for the encouragement of cotton-spinning and other operations by machinery, were enacted by the landed interest, and if this cotton-working machinery and other sorts of machinery be hurtful to this country, the landed lawgivers are responsible for the consequences.

With regard to machinery interfering with • manual labour-will persons have the goodness to think for one minute, and decide whether the race or class of labourers, called "cotton-spinners," rose up before or after the introduction and use of cottonspinning machines. The machinery called into demand-or into existence, if you will the class of cotton-spinning labourers; and so it will be found with the persons employed in every other sort of machinery. On the first invention and use of a new machine, there may be a derangement or transition of labourers from one employment to another, but such is only temporary or local. What will be said

scrawl of an author

of the machinery by which the is converted into a printed book, such as this? The most useful and intelligent class of labourers em

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