THE "STAR."
THE long-expected Radical journal, the Star, appeared on Tuesday afternoon as an evening journal, and, as is usual in this country, contained a programme of its policy and objects. It is fairly written, and, except upon one subject—the ground landlords of the Metropolis—moderate in expression ; and there is not only room in London, but need for such a paper. There is a great mass of Radicalism in the country—not so great, perhaps, as some of its adulators believe, but still very great—and it is not wily expedient, but right, that the ideas and wishes, and even the prejudices, of that mass should find ade- quate literary expression. It is folly to give men votes, and then ask them to brood in silence over even imaginary grievances, or to abstain from expressing aspirations with which the rest of the community are out of sympathy, or which, it may be, they scarcely understand. If all men have votes, the field of debate should be open to all men, cultivated or uncultivated, with the proviso that the uncultivated equally with the cultivated are bound to abstain from libel and from incitements to breach of law. A journal which would and could interpret accurately the feeling as well as the thought of the silent classes, would be a valuable addition to the English Press ; and so far as it does that, we, who shall probably differ with it on most subjects, welcome the Star. Nevertheless, we have read its programme with little but regret. Its key-note is that the halfpennies must be pro- tected, and the pennies must look after themselves. Because those who can pay the latter are better off, therefore they have no claim even, if we understand the programme, to be heard. The comfortable are not citizens at all, but only the distressed. That the majority should rule, is the condition precedent of democracy, and the majority in every country, even if they are proprietors of the soil, must necessarily be working men. We do not expect them not to consider their own interests, and are willing to allow that their true interests should be the first material object of the whole community, for they are in numbers the community itself ; but the Star goes far beyond this. It abandons democracy in favour of aristocracy, an aristocracy of the very poor. It says :—" In our view, the effect of every policy must first be regarded from the stand- point of the workers of the nation, and of the poorest and the most helpless among them. The charwoman that lives in St. Giles's, the seamstress that is sweated in White- chapel, the labourer that stands begging for work outside the dockyard gate in St. George's-in-the-East, these are the persons by whose condition we shall judge the policy of the different political parties, and as it relieves, or injures, or leaves un- helped their position, shall that policy by us be praised or condemned, helped or resisted." The paupers, in fact, are to govern, or rather all government is to be subordinated to the consideration of their interests. We say nothing of the foolish- ness of such a policy, which would, if successful, transfer all guiding power to those who, whether from fault or misfortune, have failed in the battle of life. But we may point out that it flings over the Benthamite doctrine of "the greatest happi- ness of the greatest number," that it is not democracy of any sort, and that it is not even philanthropy, for philanthropy seeks the good of all human beings. The immense majority of Englishmen are workers with work to do ; and to pass over their wishes and their interest's in favour of the unemployed or the half-employed, is to supersede government by and for the majority, by government of and for the lowest residuum. That is, no doubt, the real meaning of much of the teaching we hear around us, and we congratulate the Star on having the courage of its convictions ; but it is not Radicalism, or anything like Radicalism. It is as opposed to the true interests of the masses as it is to their wishes, its logical outcome being to tax the whole community who succeed, in order to provide incomes for the minute section which fails. "The policy will appear to us," says the Star, "worthy of everlasting thanks, and of ineffaceable glory, that does no more than enable the char- woman to put two pieces of sugar in her cup of tea instead of one ; and that adds one farthing a day to the wage of the seamstress or the labourer." Irrespective of all other con- siderations? Why not, then, make the charwoman a State allowance at once for her sugar, and recommence, on behalf of the labourer with too little to eat, the system of Imperial doles ? The country is rich enough, probably, to bear it, and that such a course must take all heart out of the workers with enough, and destroy the morale of all workers with too little, is, on the theory, of no importance, for the first object of the State, indeed its only object, is to support and comfort that section, happily a small one, of its citizens which has not enough for itself. This, too, is to be sought, according to the Star, firstly by a reform of the Land Laws which, so far as we can under- stand the programme, would redistribute all land—clearly with- out payment except from the State, that is, from the majority of hardworking men who now form the State—among the classes now distressed. That is either a policy of confiscation or a demand that all property-owners and wage-receivers shall be taxed, and very heavily taxed, in order that those who neither own nor earn shall be as comfortable as they. That is not Radicalism, but Communism. As we understand Radicalism, it would abolish all privilege when it pressed on any class whatever—including, we would observe, the grand privilege of rioting—would sweep away every obstruction in the poor man's way, including unjust taxation when there is any ; would secure to the poorest worker his right to his great property, his labour, and therefore his right to combine to obtain a full price for that labour ; and would then leave it to the individual, guaranteed against starvation, to make the most he could of his own resources. He would be treated as a responsible being, and not as a baby. Radicalism would cer- tainly not tax ten Peters to place one Paul beyond the reach of accident or misfortune. That is aristocracy, not demo- cracy, in its highest and most unjust development, and was only perfectly realised once, when Augustus taxed the world in order that the Roman unemployed, then masters of the State, should have their dinners gratis. If food is to be provided, so also must house-rent be, and we are not surprised that the Star proclaims open war against the landlords of London, condemns them for idleness—as if a proportion of the dis- tressed were not idle too—and declares that out of them must come cheap houses for the tradesman and cheap rooms for the artisan. Is, then, the State to own London, build all houses, repair all damages, and exact all rents ? If so, we shall hardly find the Majority a lenient landlord ; and if not so, then the little landlord, who will own everything, will be as he is in Paris, twice as exacting as the big one.
Details, however, do not matter. Our complaint is that the new exponent of Radicalism sees throughout politics only one object, and that a sordid one,—an increase of the wages not of the majority, but of a small class, by any and every means except Protection, which, with curious contempt for logic, is to be resisted even by violence. We also agree that Protection is immoral folly, a tax on all for the benefit of a few, burdensome to the people, and injurious to the State ; but if it would give to a few who suffer more sugar for their tea, which it might conceivably be made to do—for instance, by prohibiting all foreign-made clothing, and disabling all foreigners from tailor's work—why should the Star, on its theory, resist that system ? Because the majority will have less ? Certainly they will; but then, they will also have less if they are to support in comfort all who cannot support themselves, which is to be the new Radical ideal.
These being the objects of the Star, it follows almost of necessity that it ridicules and detests the very notion of a foreign policy. The Empire is never to be extended, and England is to do nothing for the protection of Europe or the benefit of foreign lands. "Empire, dominion, influence in the councils of Europe—all these and such like things to us are mere pestilent emptiness. The elevation, the more con- stant employment, the better wage, the increase of food in the stomachs, dignity in the souls, joy, humanity, tenderness in the hearts of the people—these, and these things alone, represent to us progress, glory, national greatness." We are never to fight in defence of the wronged, unless fighting will give us more dinner ; never to assume the tuition of peoples fallen into anarchy, unless it will profit the poor ; never to shield Europe from the suffering which would follow a wave of conquest such as once poured out from France, and may pour out from Russia, unless by such self-sacrifice we—nay, not we, but the uncomfortable among us—would clearly gain some cash. Well, it is a poor gospel that, if not a base one ; but it does not distress us much. Man does not live by bread alone ; and while ideas have power, the English will not surrender their place in the world, and with it their means of doing good, or cease from their work of educating the dark races, or look on at the struggles of humanity as things totally indifferent to men who are filled with meat. The moment they are assailed, or threatened, or eclipsed, them) teachings will be forgotten ; and they will fight, often, we greatly fear, under the stimulus not of wisdom, but of mere emotion. We would only just point out that the theory, as now stated, is not the Christian one, even as Christianity is under- stood by Quakers, and still less the Radical one, for it allows of wars of conquest for gain. We may not fight for human freedom,
but we may to make the food of paupers cheap. We may not conquer to educate or save, but we may to acquire a market. To annex a poor land is shocking, for the charwoman may have no sugar to her tea ; but to annex a rich one is a different matter, for that might give her her tea for nothing. Suppose
we conquer China, and make half the human race labour to find comforts for the unemployed, where, on the showing of the Star, would be the crime of that ?
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