MR. GRANTLEY F. BERKLEY ON CLASS LEGISLATION.

Nelson Examiner and New Zealand Chronicle, Volume XIV, Issue 66, 14 November 1855, Page 2

MR. GRANTLEY F. BERKLEY ON CLASS LEGISLATION.

The late Sunday riots, on the part of certain of the inhabitants of the British metropolis', has called forth the following caustic, and somewhat bitter letter from Mr. Berkley. Though disagreeing with that honourable gentleman on many points of his communication, x?e think, nevertheless, that he enunciates some plain homely truths, to which our legislators would do well to take heed. His wholesome advice to the people to "petition and use every constitutional means within their power," is surely the more excellent plan to adopt, for the purpose of arresting threatened " encroachments on the liberty of the subject ;" and far more likely to lead to a successful and peaceful issue than resorting to window-smashing and ruffianly violence — a course of conduct as repulsive to the feelings, as it is derogatory to the character, of every true-born Englishman. Addressing the Times, Mr. Berkley says : —

Although I raise my voice against all violence and j breach of order, I am glad, at all events, to see that for once the people of England are alive to a fact that I have been all my life telling them — that, unless they resist it by every constitutional means, all rich men desirous of gaining for themselves characters for godliness and decorum, sobriety and virtue, will be for ever interfering with their rights and healthful recreations. In a long vigil over popular interests, I have never seen the exclusive recreations of the rich interfered with. They may maintain fashionable " hells " — I beg pardon for the expression ; it is one in general use — such as the club at Crockford's used to be : they may eat their whitebait dinners at Greenwich, keep open their clubs to any hour, and break the Sunday in Hyde Park and all other places, if they please to do so. They may ride horses to death in steeple-chases, and collect around their race-horses or race-courses any amount of gambling. They might harness lambs, fawns, or doves, if they could draw them, and not a boui would raise a contravening cry, or call them cruel. Not so the poor man. If a legless cripple wishes to crawl into the sunshine, drawn by a dog, he is forbidden. If the poor make use of dogs to draw their stock-in-trade and to obtain them the means of living, they are prohibited. No matter what may be the amusement or the means, if they are entirely and only used by the poorer classes, up gets some would-be virtuoso, and, by crushing either, or both, assumes to build for himself the character he desires. The last act for the closing of public-houses and beer-shops has increased immorality and drunkenness ; and Lord Robert Grosvenor'i promised legit*

l&tion is, without the least exception, the most unjust attempt that ever entered the head of any man having a seat in the House of Commons, and, by my Hfe, that is »aying a great deal ! If the police look into the public-houses at 10 on Sunday night, they find them to all appearances closed, but inside they are full of people, drinking, all of them for the time under tha denomination of "lodgers," and therefore not within the uncertain grasp of the miserable Act of the 17th and 18th of Victoria, chap. 77, section 1. Besides this, beer and spirits in large quantities are carried from public-houses and taken to brothefc, and any house of ill-fiune or eecret hole and corner, where the police hare no power to visit, and therein drunkenness and debauchery are carried on in ten-fold greater force than they would have been if the Act above referred to had never passed. If the present Ministry mean to run honest— of late I have seen no instance of their doing so— as to the committee obtained by the member for Bristol, I hare no doubt what the report of that committee will be : and, if Lord Robert Grosvenor wishes to serve his country, maintain order, and be just to all classes, he will withdraw as mistaken an attempt at legislation as the act for the- removal of tho deer in the New Forest, and consequent infraction of the common right, was, only on an infinitely wider scale. The one has turned a peaceful locality into & scene of nocturnal incendiarism, and the other has already made the parks in London Bites for collision between the oppressed and exasperated people and the police. I hope that the people, by petition and evesrj constitutional means within their power, will now, and on all future occasions, continue to resist oppressive encroachments on the liberty of the subject.