THE LATEST LONDON EMEUTE.
IT is fortunate for the Empire that it is so difficult to get up a riot in London, for a riot in London might be more fatal than an emeute in any other capital in Europe. The country gentlemen are very proud of their "local self-govern- ment," but for certain purposes ours is the most centralised Administration in the world. The Sovereign rarely sees or enters her capital, and the Police organisation is not centra- lised in it ; but all the Departments of Government are here, the Treasury is here, the Bank of England is here, every estab- lishment essential to the daily conduct of business is here, con- centrated amidst a mass of wealth almost inconceivable in amount, and dependent for its existence entirely upon the unbroken continuousness of the municipal peace. Any occur- rence which prevented the transaction of that business for forty-eight hours would reduce the entire kingdom to a state of barter, impair credit for years, and perhaps produce in the minds of the people a desire for a considerable and disas- trous change in our institutions. A renewal of the Lord George Gordon riots in 1877 would probably cost the country in mere money ten millions an hour, and would unquestionably lead to permanent and very stringent measures for garrisoning London, and placing its poorer quarters under the strictest surveillance. Moreover, London is of all great cities in the world probably the one which has the smallest store of food always within its limits, and any outrages sufficient to make the transit of carts difficult or dangerous would in a day or two reduce many quarters of the metropolis to the position of besieged cities. An invasion could hardly be more terrible in its effects, and indeed the results of serious and especially of successful rioting in London would be so grievous and far- reaching, that we are driven to Lord Overstone's pithy sentence about invasion,—" It must never occur." The supremacy of a mob in London for a single week would do more to dissolve the Empire than the Parisian Commune could effect in their triumph of two months.
It is worth while, when the risk is so extreme, and when we are se frequently threatened with "demonstrations" which might produce riots, to consider for a moment on what the security of this mighty city, the centre of the monetary opera. tions of the world, really depends. Of course the first and ultimately the only defence is the character of the people. There is not in London any formidable power which wants to riot, which, other things being equal, would rather rioting went on than not. The criminal class, which might like a riot for the opportunities of plunder it would afford, is not numerically strong—it is barely one per cent. of the population—is not co- hesive, and is not in any perceptible proportion trained to the use of arms .while the lowest section of the Boughs, from which it would recruit its physical strength, is also untrained, is un- organised, and is, in an immense proportion, in receipt of wages which it would entirely dislike to lose. The two classes to- gether do not form probably three per cent. of the population, while the body which in Continental cities is considered their natural ally and main army, the proletariat anxious for revo- lution, does not here exist. The immense majority of London workmen, though they may desire certain changes both in the suffrage and in legislation, are entirely opposed to disorder, and possessed of just as much common-sense as their superiors in station. They are no more to be led away by agitators than Members of Parliament are. They are, indeed, exceedingly doubtful if they like demagogues at all, and are, to a degree which is almost perplexing, reluctant to elect them, or do any- thing which gives them the slightest importance. Their dis- trust of poor men --qud poor men—is carried even to an ex- treme, and they have shown for the last half-century a per- manent indisposition to make idols which, to men who have studied the history of the Wilkes days, who recollect the election at Stoke, and who know how great is the influ- ence of leaders among the agricultural population, is explicable only on the theory that in London it takes a positive grievance to induce men to deceive themselves. Even• when, as happened to a certain extent in the Orton agitation, they are mistaken in opinion, Londoners never get hot in action, and no more believe that killing police- men will help their cause than they believe that " anything will come" of a threat to Parliament. They are "without the revolutionary passion," as Karl Marx said, and indeed have a good many strong Conservative prejudices, and would, we be- lieve, if called upon in a sensible way, interfere with decisive weight upon the side of Government. The immense display of April, 1848, did not reveal the full popular strength which
would be at the disposal of a British Government determined to prevent the coercion of the Legislature. That was an up- rising of the Respectables against a danger which they probably exaggerated, and had a most beneficial effect for years upon opinion ; but Government, if seriously alarmed, could, we be- lieve, call out much more effective popular forces. It would not, we believe, be in the least difficult—and the fact is one which agitators should ponder—for the Home Office to multiply the police force at twelve hours' notice by ten, the
new recruits engaged only by the day consisting of the most powerful labouring men in London, sailors, watermen, dockyard labourers, coalheavers, and the like, men who while paid would be perfectly obedient, and would, in fact, look upon the whole business as a profitable day's job. That is to say, it would not be difficult for the Government, if unwilling for any cause to use soldiers, to confront any mob with a mob equal in numbers, superior in strength, and subject to as much discipline as would be necessary for the work, — the defence of the Westminster Palace and the great commercial institutions.. There is not the smallest probability of any such scheme being ever tried, but the existence of such a re- source in extreme cases is certain, and is, so far as we know, absolutely peculiar to the Government of Great Britain. No other Government at all events, not even that of Berlin, could, if its soldiers were away and its respeetables stricken with sudden panic, rely absolutely on its ability to gather a powerful force, if it chose, from one of the lowest classes of the population. It is not a very ennobling thing to say, perhaps, but it is certainly true that the Home Office, if pressed by necessity, could in six hours hire a hundred thousand very powerful men at ten shillings a day, who would like nothing better than proving to disorderly persons that it was better to keep indoors. There does not exist here that solidarity of the poor or that ferocity of class-opinion which would prevent such a step.
This condition of the popular mind is of itself a strong guarantee against successful rioting, wholly apart from the regular force at the disposal of Government, about which we may once more repeat, en passant, that the silliest delusions exist. Because he sees no troops about, the foreigner thinks London undefended. The Government of Great Britain does not rely on force, but scarcely any Government in Europe is better protected by actual physical force against street-rioting of the serious kind. London is always garrisond by thirteen thousand drilled and dependable men, Guardsmen and Police, but that force does not represent a third of the regular drilled power at the disposal of the authorities. A dangerous mob cannot rise out of the ground, it must give some warning, and the Government, if warned only by six hours, could produce for the defence of Parliament a regular force of soldiers, marines, and above all, artillery, which would suffice to hold London, if all London, let alone the " roughs " of London, were inclined to insurrection. The population of this city is vast enough for anything, but mobs may, like armies, be too big, and no population which could act could stand for twenty minutes against the thirty thousand men and six batteries of artillery whom a mere order by telegraph would in less than that time place at the disposal of the Home Office for active work. That, however, is merely en pageant. What we want to-day to say is, that besides the temper of the people, London is greatly secured by that of its Government, including in the word Parliament, as well as the Executive. Ministers and Members alike are so perfectly undisturbed. If there is anything certain in the modern history of great cities, it is that it takes a perturbed Executive, perturbed till it becomes fidgetty and cruel, to make a serious gmente ; and the British Government, with all its defects, is imperturbable. There is not another Government in the world which, on being informed, as this Government was this week, that an agitator who had once before raised a riot intended to march a hundred thousand men on the Legislature, would not have been thrown by the announcement into a frenzy of fuss. It would have thought itself insulted by the mere threat, and would have done something stupid merely to feel dignified. The British Government took it all on Tuesday as part of the day's work. If Mr. De Morgan had a hundred thousand followers, so much the better for Mr. De Morgan. If the people wanted to meet in their thousands, let them meet by all means, with umbrellas, if necessary. If they wanted to send a depu- tation to Parliament, let the police help along the deputation. • The " people " must not all of them go up to Parliament, for that is illegal, and Mr. De Morgan must not present his peti- tionin person, for that' is a privilege of the Sheriffs of London
and Dublin only, but for the rest, within their rights nobody hated, or despised, or oppressed them. There were police visible, and soldiers invisible, just sufficient to maintain the law, if violated by accident, but as to issuing threats, or showing rifles, or making " arrests," nobody thought of such proceedings. The police showed the " great agitator" his way into Westminster Hall, as they would show any country visitor, and the menacing deputation were asked to tea inside the Legislative Palace. No Member asked even a question about the affair, nobody was shot, nobody was arrested, and on the following day the Home Secretary, who throughout showed judgment, tact, and nerve of the most useful kind, received the deputation without the least irrita- tion, just to tell them exactly what the law was. Mr. Skip- worth was snubbed when he began to brag, but everybody else was treated with the most resolute civility. Of course the " movement " collapsed. Mr. De Morgan had made a regular blood-and-thunder speech in Hyde Park, but he went to the Commons alone, and drank his tea in peace, without being ridiculed and without being admired, and let us hope, went home feeling a good deal foolish, but much wiser. What is the use of threatening with revolution a Government which does not even prosecute, which lets an agitator denounce it in any language he likes, and then lets him take his tea within the sanctum of the Legislature itself, with as little notice as if he were a grazier come up to beg his Member to vote against the cattle-plague ? Why should not Mr. De Morgan have tea, if Mr. Whalley liked ? It is that temper in the Government which maintains that temper in the people, and between them there would be no fear for London, even if London were not very strongly protected, and were not so commanded from the. river and the hills as to lie absolutely at the mercy of any Government which had occasion to use force on the Continental scale.
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