Robert Blatchford.

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLI, Issue 8105, 4 June 1906, Page 7

Robert Blatchford.

Mr J. Whittle forwards us an article from "T.P.'s Weekly," as showing the religious views of Robert Blatchford, the well-known English Socialist, which he says have been questioned. We have only space for part of the article :— HIS RELIGION. But it is, of course, as the founder and prophet of a new political creed and religion that Blatchford takes rank among the "Forces" of the time. His religion and politics are inseparable. Like Taine, he would have the new politics and the new religion to be " the consummation of nature ■ in thought and reason." To him, as to Renan, " true theology is the science of the world and humanity." His philosophy, echoing Ingersoll, declares that " the time to be happy is now." His political creed is that " the place to be happy is here." His religion says that " the way to be happy is to make others happy." For himself he has no ambition but "to be permitted to fight with all my strength against pain, and error, and injustice, and human sorrow. . . . I think I was made for that kind of work, and I fervently wish that I may be allowed to do my duty as long as ever there is a wrong in the world that I can help to right, a grief I can help to soothe, a troth I can help to tell." He is nowise concerned for any vested interest, but is always intensely ready to fight the cause of "the poor woman's baby." " I wish," he writes, "to see all English 'children fed, washed, clothed, taught, and loved, even if there be fewer palaces in the West End of London, and fewer pampered poodles, fat menials, and ladies sick of luxury and ennui in those palaces." But the clearest statement of his faith and alms is contained in the last chapter of his last book, "Not Guilty." For virile and passionate eloqaence, it will be hard to match this chapter in our literature. It ends: " When I hear soma little Brick Lane Brother talking about the true faith, as taught in a tin chapel, in Upper Tooting, I think of the starreaders of the Aryan, hills, of the dead gods T , and the obliterated belieis of . ancient cohqnerors, long since eate&:by. worms, and of the shrivelled corpse in the museum who has lain grinning in his sandhole for thirty-thousand years, amongst his grave pots and ghost charms, and the uneaten food for the long journey to the Great Beyond. When I hear honourable members prating in the House about " Imperial questions" I think of the famished seamstress, the unemployed docker, the girl with the phossy jaw, whom the honourable gentleman ' represents.' When P read of the gorgeous management of royal pageants", I remember the graves of the Balaclava men, in the Manchester workhouse field, where the sods were spread out level over the neglected dead. When I see beautiful sculptures and paintings of Greek womanhood, I remember how, coming out of an art gallery where I bad been looking at the picture of Andromache, I saw a white haired old Englishwoman carrying a great bag of cinders on her bent old back. When I hear the angelic voices ot the choirs, and see the golden plate on cathedral altars, I ask myself questions about that Bridge of Sighs where London women drown themselves in their despair, and about that child in the workhouse school who tamed a mouse because he must have something to love. When a qaliow preacher babbles to his grownup congregation alout sin and humin nature, I remember the |men and the women I have known : the soldiers, the navvies, the colliers, the 1 doctors, the lawyers, the authors, the artists ; I remember the dancing rooms in the garrisen town, and the girls, and how they were 'oomanly in their degradation; and sweet in spite of their shame; and I wonder what the reverend gentlemen would answer them if they spoke to him as they often spoke to me, in words that were straight as blades and cut as deep.

I tell you there i 3 hardly a battered drab, a broken pauper, a hardened thief, a hopeless drunkard, a lurking tramp, a booligin who might not have been an honest and a useful citizen under fair conditions. Good women : if ever you felt the thrill of a dear child's fingers on your throat or breast, think what millions of such children in our cities must become. Good men : if ,you honor womanhood, if you love your daughters and your wives, think of the women and the girls in the streets, in the fields, in the factories, and in the gaols, and then look into your mirrors for a friend to save them. Men and women : as the little children aro now the ruffian and harlot once were ; as the ruffian and harlot aro now millions of helpless children mast become unless you give them sympathy and aid. It is no use looking for help to heaven: we must look upon the earth. It is no use asking God to help us: we must help ourselves. My friends : for the sake of good men who are better than their gods ; for the sake of good women, who aro the pride and glory of the world ; for the sake of the dear children, who are sweeter to us than the sunshine or the flowers ; for tho sake of the generation not yet spoiled nor lost ; for the sako of the nations yet unborn ; m the names of justice, of reason, and truth, I ask you for a verdict of Not Guilty." In the unforced fervour of this appeal you have Robert Blatcht'ord, Infinite toleration, intense sympathy, and passionate liumanitarianism are the bases of his personal character as of the social religion which he opposes to the time's growing scepticism and indifference.