TOPICS OF THE DAY.
THE DANGERS OF DELAY.
IN our last Number we hinted at, rather than described, some of the evils which result from the delay of Parliament in passing the Reform Bills. The delay continues, and the evils are increasing both in number and degree. So great and pressing do those evils appear to us, that we propose to treat of them this week as the leading Topic of the Day. It is unnecessary to dwell on the general stagnation of business occasioned by suspense as to the fate of the Reform Bills. Every one who lives by his industry acknowledges that he feels in his own person a portion 'of the evil resulting from intense political sus- pense. We venture to say, that there is hardly a tradesman in London who could persevere without ruin in his present expenses with his present amount of business. Of course, as the business of the dealer falls off, the orders' to the manufacturer decrease ; and finally, the labourer suffers in his turn. If the present stag- nation of business should last for another month, we shall hear of distress in the manufacturing districts." To what such distress i would probably lead, may be inferred from an account which we shall give presently of the actual political state of mind of the working classes. Does Sir ROBERT PEEL forget that this country contains great masses of population living from hand to mouth, by pursuits not agricultural? Cease to employ agricultural labourers, and they may find food in the fields and barns near which they live ; but throw out of employment a dense mass of manufacturing workpeople, in such a state of political excitement as that of the people of Manchester or Glasgow whilst we are writing, and ne- cessarily the rapid starvation of some will convert the rest into frantic wolves, who would pour into the districts in which food was obtainable by any means, and, yielding to a mixed passion of rage and fear, spread desolation over the land. But enough on this head. What is true of the London dealer is true also of every trade and profession which promotes industry and creates employ- ment for labour. The very sources of accumulation, production, and wealth, are in the course of being dried up. Nature is inactive for a short while preceding her most terrible convulsions : in the political economy of this nation, stagnation and torpor indicate a coming earthquake. In the next place, the political business of the nation is at a stand. The writer of Friendly Advice to the House of Lords, says, that if the Lords should reject the Bill after it had passed the Commons, they would be " at a dead lock." Every one en- gaged in public business is " at a dead lock." We could enume- rate not less than a dozen most important measures which ur- gently demand the attention of Parliament or of the Government, and in the conduct of which not one advancing step can be made, because the Reform, question monopolizes the thoughts of public men. If the higher classes of this country had not been infatu- ated, like all bygone aristocracies, they would no sooner have ad- mitted (what in point of fact they all do admit) the necessity of Reform, than they would have hastened to adopt several other mea- sures, having for object to qualify and dispose the people to use Reform wisely and well. Every conceivable measure having a tendency to improve the condition of the great body of the people, and to render them contented, ought to have proceeded pari passu with the Reform Bills ; and if the Bills had not been factiously op- posed, this might have been done. It is now too late, unfortunately, for adopting so wise a course ; but, at least, the Reform question may be quickly disposed of, so as to enable Ministers and the Parlia- ment quickly to turn their thoughts to those measures, without which the physical force of the country can never be happy nor ever contented. There will be evil enough if the Reform Bills pass quickly without concomitant measures for improving the state of the working classes ; but if, without any such measures, Reform be much longer impeded, a revolution of the most sweeping cha- racter will, we are very truly and seriously afraid, be inevitable. Some of our reasons for arriving, most unwillingly, at the above painful conclusion, will be found in the following extracts from the cheap publications, which—we state the fact of our own knowledge—have lately obtained an extensive circulation amongst the working classes of the metropolis and the principal manufac- turing districts. The extracts have been made at random from several of the latest numbers of the papers in question. These papers are read with delight by immense numbers, who for two months after the 1st of March used to shout unanimously for "the Bill, the whole Bill, and nothing but the Bill." The fearful change in their spirit is plainly due to the slow progress of the measure on which they had set their hearts, and, let us add, to the wicked arts of the PEEL and HUNT Coalition.
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