REFORM IN SCOTLAND.
TO THE EDITOR OF TI1E SPECTATOR.
20, Pembroke Place, Pimlico. 7th Jane 1838.
will beg the favour of you not to rely implicitly upon the information of your Edinburgh correspondent in last Saturday's Spectator ; who, although friendly to the working classes, yet wishes to keep them in their present state of degradation, until it shall please the middle class monarchy, in its own time and manner, to emancipate them. I was an eye-witness of the Reform Demonstrations at Glasgow and Edin. burgh ; and assert, in opposition to your correspondent, that the latter was not" an entire failure; " and if it can be called a" failure" at all, it must he designated such only by comparison with Glasgow, which (as might he ex- pected from difference of population and habits,) displayed 150,000 Reformers upon the books of the Clyde, besides myriads of all classes who thronged the windows and streets during the whole progress of the procession ; and what with the approving countenances of the Scottish ladies, and the respectful demeanour of the gentlemen, the lofty stone houses seemed animated with the warmest spirit of Reform and the deepest sympathy with the hopes of the oppressed. After such a grand National Demonstration at Glasgow, that of Edinburgh certainly appeared flat; but notwithstanding the citizens of Ediuburgh and their employers kept aloof, still the meeting on Calton Hill, comprising about 8,000 persons, almost covered the same space upon which the late DANIEL O'CONNELL bad his demonstration. I say the late DANIEL O'CONNELL, be- cause that last great man has fallen in Israel ; and the aversion with which the mention of the existing Pretender's name was received both at Edinburgh and Glasgow, contrasted with the enthusiastic reception of the announcement of the " People's Charter," issued by the London Working Men's Association, proves that the operatives of the North cease to bow to were leadership, and prefer great principles to great names. I do not presume to enter into all the reasons which your correspondent givers, as preventing many of the working classes of Edinbto gh from joining that par- ticular " section" denominated the Radical Association. I must, however, in justice to that 44 section," inform you that they offered to fall into the back- ground if the middle classes would take presedence. Since, then, your nameless correspondent admits that " Universal Suffrage has all the working classes and many of the middle classes in its favour, who would openly support it if only the name were changed," would it not, Mr. Editor, be worth your while to invent a new name signifying the same thing, if novelties would gratify the citizens of Modern as much as they did those of Ancient Athens?
Considering, moreover, that during the pause preceding the combined de- monstrations which will take place throughout the empire, and that the London and provincial press is silent of good and eloquent of evil in the operatives, would not your influential paper be well employed in advocating pacifications amongst real Reformers in all classes of society ?—disabusing the minds of the middle classes of their groundless jealousies and fears of the operatives, who in the Northern demonstrations received the public approbation of the Magistrates for their good conduct and proper feeling; and cautioning the Blue Bonnets to abstain from contemplating such a mischievous and unnecessary idea as physical force, and exhorting them not to weaken their moral power by disunion, lest, like their ancestors at Bothwell Bridge, whilst they fall out by the way and are disputing about left hand and right hand defections, they should be cut to pieces, not by Tories alone, but by Whigs also ; for, however the factions may oppose each other on some points, there is a perpetual coalition against the political and social rights of the millions.
I have the honour to be, Sir, your obedient servant,
ARTHUR S. WADE, D.D.
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