CONSEQUENCES OF TORY AGITATION : TH/g BLOW IN RETURN.
AT no fortear period has the Tory party displayed greater activity than during that which has elapsed since the last prorogation of Parliament. In almost every county and in many of the principal cities, under one pretext or another, there have been Opposi- tion gatherings—sometimes avowedly political, sometimes with the pretended object of defending the interests of Protestantism and exposing the errors of Popery, or of discussing the question of agricultural distress. Whatever might be the ostensible aim, it has almost invariably happened that these meetings, whether Conservative, Protestant, or Agricultural, have been made the occasion of attacking the present Ministers and defam- ing their supporters. Hired agitators, scattering firebrands throughout the country, are greeted as the apostles of Christian truth. If the " No-Popery " cry makes little impression, it is not for want of vigorous efforts in addressing it to the ear of ignorance and prejudice. Nor is it merely in talking and writing, in speechi- fying at public meetings and dinners, and in the newspapers, that the extraordinary zeal of the Anti-Reformers is visible: when it becomes necessary to act, we find them equally unscrupulous and alert. Every description of undue influence is resorted to; every means that long practice in the dirtiest work of elections can suggest, is put in requisition to insure the return of their candi- date. No more regard is paid to the conscientious opinions or promises of dependent voters than if they were so many bead of cattle. The landlord issues his commands to his tenantry to march to the polling-booth and vote as ordered, on pain of notices to quit, or of distraints for rent and arrears. This is now done on system ; and the game has been played with considerable success. The influence of property is strained, for party purposes, to an ex- tent hitherto unknown in this country. It wears the appearance of a combination of men of accumulated wealth against the middle classes and those who maintain themselves by labour.
All these efforts are made in behalf of High Toryism. The advice of Sir ROBERT PEEL has been utterly disregarded. The policy which dictated the speech at Merchant Tailors' Hall and the Tamworth manifesto is derided, as pusillanimous. The no- minal leader of the Opposition is destitute of every thing like a controlling influence among his professed followers. Ile sees this,- and pertinaciously refuses to sanction their present proceedings. He cannot, though urgently entreated, be prevailed upon to at- tend any of their meetings—to preside at any of their orgies. They make no secret of their contempt for his want of nerve; while the few more sagacious members of the party, who cleave to PEEL, do not scruple to avow their belief that their violent brethren are ruining every thing by their precipitation. PEEL and his set dread a retaliation : and well they may. The consequences of the appeal of the Tories to the People cannot but be eventually disastrous to their interests as a party. In the first place, the constant and ferocious attacks which have been made on the Catholics, must render one-third of the population of the United Kingdom inveterately hostile to them. The bitterness of hatred with which the wild millions of Ireland have long re- garded the Tories, must be exasperated fearfully by the language of the Times and other organs of the faction. We have seen what use Mr. O'CONNELL has made of their attacks on the Catholic- priesthood. Had the example of Sir ROBERT PEEL, instead of Lords KENYOIY and W INCHELSEA, been followed, conciliation would have been tried. Considering that the object of the Tories is a return to power and place, it seems an insanity to have ex- hibited such rancour to the Catholic portion of our fellow-subjects. Most egregious has been the folly and glaring the impoliey of the men who have taken Mr. 0-Sulatvasr for a prophet and the Times for a political guide!
No doubt, it was anticipated that the Protestant portion of the Irish Liberals might be worked upon by the systematic assaults on the Catholics to keep aloof from them ; but so far from this being the case, a Reform Association for Ireland has been esta- blished by the conjoint efforts of the leading Catholic and Pro- testant nobility and gentry. The registration of Liberal voters is the object of this Society's exertions; and, from the spirit in which its proceedings are carried on, it is manifest that the Tories
will be considerably injured by them. Union among Reformers of all grades in society, of all creeds, and of' every shade of politi- cal opinion, has resulted from the Tory aggressions. The Irish People are now headed by the Liberal Aristocracy. So much for the consequences of the CUMBERLAND policy of agitation as re- gards Ireland.
In England, there is a mass of discontent among the non-
electors, which may without much difficulty be moved in such a way as to spread terror among those who are now engaged so zealously in the work of agitation. The Carlton Club was the parent of the Reform Association, which; in a comparatively limited sphere of action, has baffled the Tories. The politico- religious crusade of the M•Glizes and O'Sucuvarts has sug- gested to time Radicals the advantage of sending missionaries among the operatives of the North; and we see by the news- papers, that Mr. FEARGUS O'CONNOR has been received by them with open arms. The attention of the masses has been directed to tile subject of religious establishments; and it is easy to fore:ee that a searching and hostile inquiry into the abuses of the Church ill England must be precipitated by the attempts made to route popular prejudices against the Catholics. Now that the public mind is awakened on the subject, it will not be a difficult task to give a direction to the popular demands very different from that which they who first "moved the waters '' anticipated. But it is not merely as regards Ecclesiastical affairs that danger to Toryism will arise from agitation. It was with no small diffi- culty that men of the greatest influence with the masses persuaded them to rest satisfied with a temporary and experimental exclu- sion from the elective franchise, and lend their aid in passing the Reform Act, which excluded them. In no event would it be pos- sible, any more than just, to maintain this exclusion permanently. It will not do to tell the intelligent operative classes of Birming- ham, Manchester, Leeds, and Sheffield, that they have no right, under the Constitution, to be directly as well as virtually repre- sented in Parliament; and that the 300,000 Electors of England are as irresponsible to the Nation for the mode in which they use the privilege of voting as the Peers are. Without troubling themselves about what is or is not Constitutional, they a ill create a right, if it does not exist, to a share, through their Representatives, in managing the affairs of that people of which they form the great majority. Hitherto they have believed, or wished to believe, that they were represented in Parliament, because of the Electors and themselves having common interests. Now they are informed in Tory newspapers and pamphlets, that such is not the case,—that the Commons are not the People, but a privileged few, only more numerous than the Peers;* and that, like the Lords, the House of Commons may and does vote without any regard to the wishes of the non-electors. No one who is aware of the spirit which pervades the population of our manufacturing districts will believe that they can be instructed in this doctrine with impunity. Its mon- strous injustice must forcibly strike them, when explained, as it will be, by such men as FEARGUS O'CONNOR, EBENEZER ELLIOTT, and many others. The safe method of postponing the demand for a greatly extended suffrage, would have been to have passed many of those measures which a Parliament really elected by " the People" would have passed. The first Reformed Parliament showed by its acts that it had little sym- pathy with "the People" (in the new Tory or DISRAELI sense of " People"); and so much disgust was excited, that it was with no small difficulty the popular feeling was partially awakened at the last election in favour of even the Liberal Whigs. But the Tories go far beyond the Liberals in their exclusive policy. Every non-elector now knows that his claims for admission to the franchise will be opposed by the Tories ; that their aim is " to stop the Movement,"—that is, to impede the national progression— to bolster up the abuses of the Church—to make the Reform Act a nullity—in short, to restore as far as in them lies the old sys- tem of Oligarchical misgovernment.
Now if the Tories had acted with common prudence, they would not so ostentatiously have paraded their odious opinions. They would have abstained from insulting the millions. They would have shrunk from agitation, as sure to produce a reaction fatal to themselves, and which cannot be viewed without alarm by any,— for who lean tell where or bow it will end ? At present the opera- tive classes are fully employed; but it is to be expected that there will ere very long be a temporary relaxation of the demand for labour. It is almost certain that then, if not before, sonic Ultra- Radical agitator will find ten to address where O'CONNOR now finds one, and will imitate the example set him this autumn by the Tories and their hired orators, in a way which will cause them bitterly to regret the day when they commenced the system of discussing exciting topics in the presence of multitudes.
The rural population is more dogged, long-suffering, and less excitable than the mass of the toe nspeople; but we have had fearful experience of their mode of showing discontent, when goaded by the spirit of insubordination. It has been said that political oppression had nothing to do with the prandial insurrec- tions and the incendiarism of 1830: then how did it happen that the expulsion of the Tories from power restored peace to the agri- cultural districts ? That peace was obtained and preserved by the notion, prevalent though delusive, that the power of the tyrannical Squirearchy had been struck down. The resignation with which, apparently, the Tories submitted to their loss of in- fluence in the Elections of 1832, kept up the delusion. The Yeomanry, for the most part, voted as they pleased. The yoke of the political oppressor was unfelt. But times are ale rel. The Yeomen are coerced by the Magistracy, the Clergy, and the Landed Gentry, as they never were before. They have no Eng- lish blood in their veins if it does not buil with suppressed rage at the treatment they as yet submit to. Bitter denunciations and threats of revenge, such as will escape the slave, must sometimes reach the ears of desperate men, who well remember the days of SWING, and the terror his acts struck into the hearts of the proud and insolent landlords. We say that the causes which produced the agricultural crimes and insubordination of 1830 are now in operation, wherever the power of the landlord is exercised as it was at the late Devonshire election, and more recently in Northamptonshire; and we warn the Tories, for their sakes as well as our own, to desist from practices so pregnant with danger to the peace of the country and the security of property. But it is not a political reaction only that the Tory agitators have in prospect. The recent agricultural meetings must have opened the eyes of the farmers to the fraud by which their capital has been transferred to their landlords in the shape of high rents. They have been told at last,—for to continue the deceit was no • Me Dleraeli "the Younger," and Morning Pug, passim. longer possible,—that they must not expect high prices from high Corn-duties, and that it is vain to talk about the repeal of the Malt-tax. Now here are materials for a Radical agitator among the farmers and peasantry. Do the Magistracy and Landed Gen- tlemen suppose it impracticable to organize a system of rural agitation ? They may learn the contrary to their cost. So may the Clergy,—already rendered sufficiently odious by the mode in which their income is collected, but who seem resolved that if they are to be hated, it shall not be in the character of tithe-owners merely, but as political demagogues. Lecturers against Tory, Tithe-collecting, Partisan Parsons, would find multitudes of hearers and disciples in all parts of the country : and declama- tion would not be the only object of such meetings.
Such are the consequences which rational men of all parties foresee must result from the extensive system of Political. Clerical, and Agricultural agitation, now put in motion everywhere by sel- fish place-seekers, reckless or ignorant of its dangerous working on the public mind.
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