THE Grey River Argus. PUBLISHED DAILY. TUESDAY, JANUARY 30, 1872.

Grey River Argus, Volume XII, Issue 1094, 30 January 1872, Page 2

THE Grey River Argus. PUBLISHED DAILY. TUESDAY, JANUARY 30, 1872.

" Republicanism is checkmated," so runs the telegraphic summary of English news, but this conclusion is not borne out by a careful reading of the news. It is true that that sympathy which always reigns in the breast of the people of the United Kingdom for suffering has, in consequence of the illness of the Queen and the Prince eff Wales, stopped the outward manifestation of the progress of ultra-democratic principles, but it has not killed it. The lone maiden's wail in Tennyson's " Morto D'Arthur" migh well apply to the present stage of Republicanism — "It is not dead," she sighed and said, "Not dead, but only sleeping." And before long wo fear we shall have to chronicle the re-awakening as it were of the movement. Never before since the days of James 11. or Charles I. was England so rife for the movement as she is at present, and it will, indeed, require all the wisdom of her legislators to avert the tide for a time. It would be absurd to suppose that such men as Bradlaugh, or even Odger, would prove the men for • the age, and therefore it is unwise to attach too much importance to their utterances. Such men have always been connected with the initiation of similar movements, but when tbe time for action arrives by some unaccountable process a different class of men come to the surface. The late struggles in England between labor and capital have shown the laboring class that they possess a certain amount of power, and the course adopted by them to attain their ends under the leadership of such men as Mr Burnett, at Newcastle, and Mr Pickard, at Merthyr - Tydvil, show that they are hot likely to be led away by blatant demagogues, but rather to look calmly at matters and consider well to whom they commit tlu-uiddves. The progress made by the society presided over by Karl Marx is not likely to be stopped by the illness or death of the Prince of Wales — its wonderful organization and its principles ar«j too deeply rooted for that, and it is questionable whether the present lull is not due to tho operation of some deeply-laid scheme. Much has been said about the failure of the Chartist organization ; and the present movement has been compared to it ; but there is no comparison. The Chartist movement was essentially superficial, and its objects appeared on the surface from the commencement. There was no real attempt at organization, and the scheme burst prematurely, although it has borne fruit since and several of the celebrated Five Points are now the law of England. The gap that has been made of late between all clashes— tho gradual progress of the great principle of " doubt " in all matters not only of policy but of religion is beginning to toll, and there is no disguising the fact that the people have been educated to this end. Tho movement is not one of ignorance, nor of wild fanaticism, but of calm steady thought, and in bringing it out the greatest writers of the present age have borne part. John Stuart Mill and Professor Fawcett among political economists, Buckle, in his "History of Civilisation," have already pointed out wherein the power lies, and shown the great disproportion of wealth and poverty in England,

while the spread of the doctrines of St.Simon, Le Comte, and the theories of Darwin, Huxley, and the teachings of J Ren'an, Voysey, tWEssajte and Reviews, and a host of writings of that class has shook the old political and religious ideas to their centre in England, and therefore to suppose that Ultra-Democracy is checkmated is both' a fallacy and an absurdity. The struggle will come, but it need not be expected that such men as Bradlaugh and Odger will, when the time for action arrives, be found in- the van. The same reasoning pt.wer that now prompts the great mass of England to ask the reason " Why," will also point out the proper loader. It would be a bad thing for England, perhaps, if Monarchy was abolished, but that some great constitutional changes are not only imminent, but necessary, and as surely as England " drifted into the Crimean war," so surely is it she is drifting into a great internal struggle.