PRETENDED CONVERSION OF THE MASSES TO TORYISM.
THE Tories boast of their success in forming Operative Associa. tions. They quote the aphorism of BURRE—" When ba4 men combine, the good must associate," and labour to organize OA masses. They fancy, or at least assert, that a mighty change rats recently come over the working classes, who are now the main- stay of the Church and the Constitution. " This salutary state of things," says the Times, " we believe to be in a great measure owing to the operative Conservatives. That import,aut class of our fellow subjecs feel sensible of the mighty interegts now at woke. They see in the present A riat,,ce acy their national leaders—in the Conservative gentry, their political guides; and, rallying round the institutions wlaich they are sworn by their allegiance to maintain, they form the best and, surest safeguard of the British Constitution."
They who wish to see an extension of political rights among the people, and an improvement in egeir physical condition, by no means regret or would impede Vile efforts of the Tories to drill the working classes and teach them how to act in combination. We wish the Tories all manner of success in the establishment of associations : by and by, we shall find them of excellent ser- vice. There is not the slightest ground for the apprehension that they will permanently afford their support to a system which excludes the great majority from electoral privileges, and forces up the price of bread. While wages are good and employment plentiful, it is easy for the Tories to collect together large bodies of the operatives, give them good din- ners, and get up a cry of Church and King. But let a season of adversity arise, and the shout will be, "Down with the Corn-laws." The well-disciplined troops of Toryism, the men who have been taught by the Tories to "associate," will then turn upon their commanders, and prove that they have profited by their instructions.
It is strange that the Tory leaders should be blind to the dan- ger of their present proceedings. They have still an instinctive horror of the people; they still, when by chance hypocrisy is laid aside and their real opinions are displayed, let out their secret enmity to and dread of the masses. Thus, the Times, which on Monday held forth in praise of the working-classes, as "the best and surest safeguard of the British Constitution;' on Tuesday ex- pressed the alarm which the Tories arc continually under, lest the people should overthrow the Constitution- " Injuriosa ne pixie proruant
Stantern columnam."
In reference to Lord VALLETORT'S speech at the Devonport din- ner, the Times said- " Lord Valletort wide a pertinent allusion to the monstrous ingratitude, and worse than barbarous brutality of the rabble, in their treatment, a few years ago, of the greatest man this empire has produced for a century, when they attacked with ruffian fierceness the house of the Duke of Wellington—of him who had warded off from the house and fireside of every man in England that destruction before which the rest of the inhabited world stood appalled : and an edifying specimen indeed it was of the wise and virtuous consistency of that populace which is held up by modern Whig Ministers as a fit repository of privilege and power, when Lord Valletort described it as only three years ago forcing the saviour of the country to barricade his door, and within these few months, in happier, though possibly not more stable mood, cheering and extolling him as their idol. That order of the community which in Holland, seized with diabolical fury, massacred De Witt,—than whom a more illustrious statesman or patriot has seldom, if ever, existed,—are worthy candidates, it must be confessed, for supreme power over the educated and affluent classes anywhere ! Eminent judges of the qualifications of public men Wise and upright in the discharge of important trusts, and temperate in the exercise of constitutional functions!"
There spoke the Tory. The people who on Monday were plastered with praise, on Tuesday were "rabble," monsters of in- gratitude, barbarous, and brutal. Just now they are in a
"happier mood," but nobody knows how soon they may again assail the Duke of WELLINGTON with "ruffian fierceness.' Yet
these are the classes whose power the Tories are augmenting ten- fold, by teaching them the art of organization—of moving together on a given point of attack. Wise are they in their generation, these Tories In their blind fury against the Whigs, and fierce lust of power, the Tories are arming those who, in a period of commercial dis- tress amid scarcity of food, may be directed against themselves as well as the Whigs, but not against the Radicals, be it remem- bered. To get up a popular outcry against either of the two great aristocratic parties, is not difficult ; but what have the Radicals to fear from the "operatives ?" What is there that the operatives demand which the Radical leaders are not desirous of getting for them ? What is there that the operatives, when they are in earnest and in distress, desire and need, that the Tories will not refuse them?
Are there no symptoms of the approach of evil days? What
says the last Leeds Mercury Of the wool trade it is reported-
" There is but little animation in this trade at present : of the Leeds trade—" there has been no improvement in our cloth markets this week :" at Huddersfield—" there has not been much business doing:" at Bradford—they "cannot report any improve- ment for lower fabrics; on the contrary, they are not so much in demand :" at Manchester—" the market for goods was again de- pressed, more so than the preceding week." Turn now to the state
of the Corn-market ; and at Wakefield we find "a considerable advance in the price of grain" reported ; wheat Gs., barley 4s. a quarter higher. In Mark Lane on Monday, wheat touched 70s. a quarter.
Will "Church and King" be a stopper to the cry for the aboli- tion of the Corn-laws? Will "Lord Lyndhurst and the Peers" put down the demand for Universal Suffrage?
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