TOPICS OF THE DAY.

WHERE WILL THESE CHANGES TERMINATE?

tr is a common apostrophe with Anti-Reform v ritera and speakers, " Where will these changes terminate?"—" When will the Radicals be satisfied?" And it is urged, " They have ultericr views which they conceal: give them an inch they take an ell ; when Parliamentary Reform was granted, then they found they wanted Municipal Rtfeem; when that was given, then nothing short of Church Reform, Peerage Reform, &c. would do ; Alps on Alps arise, and there is no end to demand while there are no bounds to concession." The fatal heresy of the Reformers us thus followed out to all its dreadful imaginary consequences of insubordination and revolution, till the chain being complete— each cause duly dovetailed to its effect—comes at last the terrible rebuke, " Behold the fluits of your change ! the consequences of your first false step!" This language describes two charges which have been brought at different times against the Radicals. First, one of shortsightt d temerity—that they urge on reform, not perceiving it to end in revolution. Second, cue of joint knavery and disloyalty—that they urge it on, knowing and desiring it to end in revolution, but declaring it to lead to good order. These charges deserve to be met by all Reformers, who really know what they me i n, (which is by no means universally the case,) and who are pre- pared to show that their weaning is good and reasonable. It is for Whigs to say one thing and mean another. Let them, for sake of °Mee, basely introduce organic changes which, in their own hearts, they believe to be full of danger to the Constitution ; let thtm see Revolution in Reform, yet advocate it ; let them, when kicked forwards by the people in the direction of change, aflbct a natural lounge, and seem to walk of their own free will and locomotion, doing the bidding of their drivers while they bate and fear them : in them it is enteral. But let no true Radical Reformer sullbr an unnecessary suspicion to rest on the cause he advocates, by the suppression of any part of his wishes or designs in regard to it. If be thinks Reform iden- tical with Revolution, and advocates the one with a view to the other, let him avow it ; let him give reason for the faith that is in him, mid " Ged defend the right." Even as an afillir of policy, Doti:hit; is gained by concealment equivalent to what is lost ; the gain may be an occasional suffrage extorted in error—the tem- porary cooperation of a deceived party ; the loss is that of public confidence, and the depreciation of the common cause. It is time that the ulterior views of Radical Reformers should be known, that they may neither be under-calculated by the Reform-finality men, and those who are for movieg no faster than they need, nor exaggerated and made bugbears of by the shivering alarmists who look forward to " reigns of terror" and other entertainments not yet announced.

It' we take a general survey of the present state of public affairs, we shall probably see reason to believe, that we are at this mo- ment only on the threshold of a series of political changes, the tendency and effect of which will be gradually to transfer power and property from the bands of the present holders to those of the industrious classes—in other words, to reduce the enormous disparity of fortune existing between the extremes of society.* That this end may be accomplished, will be the prayer of every right-minded man in the kingdom. That it may be accomplished peacefully, gradually, and without individual injury being felt, must be the desire of all just and temperate Reformers. Where will these changes terininate?—we will tell you first where they will not terminate. They will not terminate at any imaginable prospective point of Whig legislation ; they will not

terminate while a mean, skulking, hollow-hearted party is pursu- ing a characteristic policy. While the objects of government

have respect to the interests of any party, be that party Whig or Tory, they will not terminate. As long as the aim of our governors is only to keep up appearances—to seem, not to be the

benefactors of the people—to remove only present and obvious causes of complaint, affecting the security of their own position, but to leave the germs cf future calamity undisturbed in the around, indifferent what bitter fruit may spring up for the country when they shall no longer be there to eat of it ; as long as they regard government as a trade in popular

rights, in which they sell, and the No* buy justice, and

they have no better object than to drive the hardest bargain with the poorest customer ; as long as they beggar the bees to pamper the drones; as long as they are shocked if church-

pews are not in proportion to souls, but are not shocked if loaves are insufficient for mouths ; so long as they uphold a property qualification, and then take good care that non-electors shall have no chance of coming by property; in short, as long as they cheat, lie, and pick pockets, fawn and bully, dupe the people, betray the people, use the people,—so long these changes will not terminate, so long the Reformers will not be satisfied.

Those easy country gentlemen to whom some temporary rise in the wages of labour, some brisk market, lucky hop season, or what not, is never wanting as an argument to justify adherence

• Years ago, the Spectator demonstrated, by detailed analysis, the influence of one branch of "landed ascendancy" lawmaking—the department of Taxation —in creating, extending, and aggravating the disparities of fortune. The in- vestigation may be pushed into other parts of our system, in a similar method, and with like results. to e old system of things, and to give weight and probability to a grave charge against Radical politicians of fomenting disaffec- tion and spreading groundless discontent, must form a curious

estimate of the intelligence of the country—or merely betray the limited nature of their own—if they would narrow the great ques- tion of popular claims to these petty bounds. But they cannot

even show, as they could do in god old Tory days, that the people are well fed; haggard faces from lantern jaws mutter contradiction on every side. Let us whisper a word in your ear, good landed gentlemen : there must be more men of a hundred a year, and fewer men of sixteen thousand, before these changes can terminate.

" Then you advocate Reform with a view to Revolution ? These

are tans ulterior views? You have shown the cloven foot of dis- loyalty ?"—We answer, if a gradual change in the relation of power and property, to the extent here intendedto be expressed : that is to say, a change which, in the course of time, legally, and by the natural operation of laws passed by a Legislature duly representing the sense of the country, shall effectuate a new and

more equable distribution of the wealth and resources of that country ; if such a change in the affairs of a nation be a revolution, (and undoubtedly it is ose,) then we advocate Reform with a view to Revolution.

If we throw out every argument based on abstract principles— the rights of man, natural equality, and so forth—and confine our views solely to the facts of the day, the actual state of public interests, the prospects and condition of society, we can still arrive

at no other conclusion than this, that a great radical change in our political afthirs is to come—sooner or later—and with more or less peril to the national peace. If we desired it not and had

rather remain as we are, still, seeing this broad coming shadow so distinctly defined, we should feel impelled to recognize it, and should prepare ourselves to deal with the corresponding substance of such an adumbration in the best manner we could. But we desire it most strenuously ; and fear it not. We desire it, because we are persuaded that it comes to substitute right for wrong, and truth for falsehood—to silence the squabbles of fsction, and establish new and better standards of public- spirit. And we fear it not, because, in the first place, we do not subscribe to the estimate of the English character, which, as we observed last week, seems to form the main ground of the appre- hension with which both Whigs and Tories evidently regard the growth of the popular power ; and, in the next place, we never th tight that justice begat injustice, or hi:nerds injuries, in the

caso of any people, and that if such effects have, in any age or country, seemed to flow from such causes, it was not, in reality,

from those causes that they flowed, but from other very different causes, connected with them, that lay less patent to observation,— as, for example, the justifiable resentment of long injuries when

justice has not been (as history may choose to say) granted, but extorted. Danger there unquestionably is in all great im- provements of the popular power; but 'danger in posse, not

imminent essential danger—danger if wrongfully dealt with— danger if resisted on false grounds. It would be difficult to name the instance in which the people have ever gained their point in the teeth of reason. It would be equally difficult, however, to name the instance in which they have been successfully foiled when they have had reason on their side. Both these facts, if you admit them—and you must—deserve to be trea- sured up as valuable materials for political philosophy. The rea- son is no less valuable to know ; and is this. Whatever gives moral courage, leads to physical power, to resolution and energy ; the sense of right inspires this moral courage in its highest state. On the other Laud, the consciousness of wrong unnerves the mind, telexes determination and leads as inevitably to discomfiture. There is only one road to victory for nation or individual; and that

is, though Mr. 0.Coniagsn may have said the same a score of times, to be in the right.

Being no mouthpiece of a precarious party, and because we pro- secute these subjects with a deep impression of the important in- terests they involve, so we are loath to mix them up with the petty heats of newspaper warfare. But even were we naturally

Isnd of cavilling, we should find it difficult to hang a paragraph on such a poor peg as the Globe of Monday last offers to us. Something appears to have turned the head of a very flimsy writer in that paper. It seems that, whosoever discusses the affairs of government, is supposed to be addressing himself to the Globe newspaper !

In speaking, last week, of those political poltroons who tremble at the sight of a strong people, as if they were so many wild beasts ready to devour them, we said, " Tories and Whigs are here both

in the same moral; bullies are cowards, and so are sneaks." The writer in the Globe, never doubting but he is perpetually in our

thoughts, takes this up as a particular affront intended for him- self, and rushes to the rescue of his Whiggery with a handful of personal pronouns-

" Our readers know that we We have opposed "—" We have dia. chimed 7—" Our readers at least know that this description would be a total niigstatement of the manner in which we," &c.

Now we are obliged to observe, that when we were writing our paper on the " Popular Character,' we were thinking of the Bri- tish nation, and not of the writer in the Globe, or any other par- ticular" mental labourer," however meritorious. The only point in the Globe's article that could succeed in rais- ing a misapprehension of our meaning, is contained in the follow- ing paragraph of that journal- " This class [the industrious classe.= the writer speaks of as honourably distinguished from the upper or idle classes of the country ;' and therein COM. mits as gross an injustice to the classes above manual labourers, as we should have done to the latter had we confounded the whole of them with the con- courses in Palace Yard or on Kersal Moor, and commits a piece of populace. couttiership at the expense of the mental labouring classes, amongst whom, even in the highest orders, there are instances of toil more intense than that of any hand•workinan can be. However, we are no apologists of the idle portion of the 'upper classes ;' we only say that the description does not apply, in this country, to any numerically large section of the classes above manual labour, We are not the less willing to see it diminished by any means practicable. except exalting the hand above the heath, manual above mental toil. And this is the

drift of unqualified distinction drawn in favour of one class. It betrays the animus which, on the part of that class, the writer disclaime."

When we spoke of the lower or industrious classes as "honourably distinguished from the upper or idle classes," we referred to the two extremes of society, and not to those classes amongst which are to be found the" mental labourers," in whose behalf the Globe is SO gratuitously eloquent. Does the writer understand " upper classes " to include the " mental labouring classes ? " We cer- tainly did not so intend. We labour with our minds as well as the Globe, but we did not know that we belonged to the upper classes. We have every wish to appreciate the labour of the mind at its full value. We boll that labour in the highest pos- sible esteem, and only regret that it should be so frequently mis- bestowod. The " honourable distinction " we claimed for the ma- nual labourers. was in the comparison with their " superiors"— the vampires that suck their blood. As for the description not applying to any " numerically large section," this is a mere quibble, and nothing to the purpose. If the class that it applies to is a class that swallows up half the sub- stance of the country, it is of no consequence whether it is "nu- merically large" or not.

We never drew "unqualified distinctions in fitvour of one class." When justice is to be done to one particular class of society, it is not the time to go into the merits of the other classes. And with respect to "exalting the hand over the head," even if we alvocated such a subversion of the natural order of things, which nothing we have said can be construed to do, the consummation is impossible. The literal exchange will take place, and the hand be seen growing from the neck, when such a revolution as this shall arrive io the political world.