ENGLISH EXTRACTS. TIIE CHARTIST MOVEMENT IN ENGLAND. [From the "Times," April 22.]

New Zealander, Volume 7, Issue 565, 13 September 1851, Page 3

ENGLISH EXTRACTS. TIIE CHARTIST MOVEMENT IN ENGLAND. [From the " Times," April 22.]

After a collapse of three years the Chartist isTational Convention begins to pluck up its spirits, and, as if nothing daunted, has chosen the 10th of April as the date of a compi'chensive programme. Such continental agitators as condescend to visit this reactionary metropolis at the approaching Exhibiton have thus an opportunity of seeing that if we declined to join the dance of revolution it -was not for want of an opportunity at home. The Charter, as interpreted in this document, goes at once to the root of all our social disorders. While the Legislature has been feebly nibbling at this or that nuisance for these hundreds of years, and have only strengthened the prescription of wrong, Mr. Reynolds and his friends are prepared to make a clean sweep without more ado. On the important subjects of the land, the church, education, labour, poverty, taxes, the debt, the currency, the army, the navy, the militia, and the press, these gentlemen speak with a fullness and decision which assure us they would have no difficulty in forming a Chartist Cabinet prepared to undertake all these departments. The six points of the Charter have hitherto failed to satisfy prudent politicians, in consequence of certain vague apprehensions as to the working of a Legislature framed on this plan. The Convention has now removed the unpleasant doubt that hung over their intentions. They tell us without any reserve what they expect from a Parliament of their own choice, and, in fact, instead of the Charter being itself the end of a people's aspirations, we are now presented with a further "ultimatum," to which the Charter, we are assured, will immediately conduct us. Land belongs to mankind. Its piesent monopoly is repugnant to the laws of God and nature. It is therefore to be nationalized — that is, the State is forthwith to take poor, common, church, ! -and Crown lands, to buy all other land at fair current prices, with priority of purchase, and, in a word, to resume possession of the soil as the existing interests can be extinguished. As the purchase is to be peremptory, and there is to be no bidding allowed against the State, or any arbitration except the sovereign voice of the people, the State would thus be enabled to realize the nationality of the soil at a comparatively small cost. On this being effected it is evident that the department of Woods and Forests would become one of growing importance. The Convention has not overlooked this result, and it has provided a Board of Agriculture, the office of which would be_to locate the population evenly over the surface of the soil ; each tenant to pay a moderate corn rent and be allowed compensation for improvements. How this is to be appraised we are not now told. The present maikel value of land is in very few cases equal to the money laid out in the buildings upon it and other permanent improvements; so, if the outgoing landlords are not to be allowed compensation on their own terms, we hardly see how the outgoing tenants can fairly expect it. But we pass on to the Church, Hero everything is to be as free as heart can desire, " Religion should be free ; as spiritual, it ought not to be subject to temporal control." The pen of course is passed through church rates and tythes, though, as the Stale will possibly want money, even if it does buy the soil upon its own terms, we suggest to Messrs. Reynolds, O'Connor, Harney, and Co., whether it would not be advisable to sell rates and tythes, or, what is the same thing, to make the payer redeem them. How they would deal with the, Tope, or whether they would be more tolerant o£ another Joe Smith than our republican cousins across the Atlantic, we we Jeffc to conjecture. While religion is to be

free, education is to Lo compulsory. Every citizen is to be obliged to have his children made good citi/cns so far as regards the common branches of knowledge, and if he wishes them to learn classics, mathematics, high art, or any other recondite lore, the State is to find him professors gratis out of that inexhaustible fund which the Charter would be sure to place at the disposal of the State. There is a"rising school which, to a certain extent, occupies the same grounds as Chartism ; it is fed by the same instincts, seizes the same class of minds, and every now and then is seen to divide the interest of the same political crisis. From February 24 to June 15, 1848, two powers divided the Government of France — political democracy and industrial socialism — the former power, however, after a desperate effort was then fairly crushed, and has not yet assumed political rank at Paris. The six points of the Charter are pure democracy ; the programme before us attempts to reconcile it with Socialism^ a f«r*more genial system than the other, antTfar more adapted to captivate ardent and affectionate but undisciplined minds. Such a mind finds itself annihilated as the unit of a democracy, possessing one vote out of 20,000, for one member out of 500, fur one estate out of three. It finds itself annihilated before the tempests of passion that occasionally sway all democracies the way of territorial cupidity or national jealousy. It embraces far more gladly the idea of a great industrial compact which is to give every man a due reward for his work without the suicidal competition, the flagrant inequalities, and soul destroying drudgery, the terrible risks, of common manufacture and commerce. This is the main idea of Socialism, and it is utter incompatible with political freedom under any name whatever. The Chartists, however, do not wish to quarrel either with Socialism or with, the Socialists, and like Ledrullollin and his friends in the late revolutionary Government, they would fain keep the peace as long as they can with so captivating a piinciple and so formidable a rival. With some slight reserves the Socialist system is engrafted into the present manifesto in the shape of a Labour Law, proposing to abrogate the relation of master and man, to rescue the "creator" from his subjection to the "creature," to conduct industrial works by co-operative association, connected in a national union, and assisted with grants from a credit fund opened by the State. This of course is the very thing we used to read of three years ago in the proceedings at the Luxembourg. Oddly enough, just before the Socialist article of this programme come a few words at the tail of the article on education, which if carried into effect, would strike at the very root of Socialism. After providing that everybody shall be taught whatever he wishes to learn at the expense of the State, the article further ordains, "That industrial schools be established, in which the young may be taught the various trades and professions, thus gradually superseded the system of apprenticeship." How is this compatible with the principles of co-operative associations ? The views of the Chartists on the subject of taxation acquire some importance from the fact that they do not seem to contemplate any immediate reduction of the national expenditure, but rather the contrary. They propose to go on paying the interests of the national debt, but reckoning that interest as an instalment of the capital ; their object of course being not to spare themselves, but the next generation. In like manner the standing army is to be maintained until suitable changes in our colonies and at home shall have dispensed with its aid : and meanwhile certain reforms in enlistments, period of service, soldiers' board and lodging, terms of promotion, and so forth, would be found rather costly. The programme is as libei'al on the subject of the navy. It proposes also militia, that a should give every male over 15 the opportunity of military training. On the whole, then, it is evident that the Chartist budget would for the next twenty years be at least as serious an affair as the present annual statement so called. ISTay, more so, for besidc3 nearly the existing expenses, the programme proposes that the State Bhall maintain all the poor wherever they please, and that it shall employ all the unemployed, from the national revenue ; it proposes that every citizen shall be offered the highest education for his children at schools, colleges, and universities maintained by the State ; it proposes the purchase of the whole soil of these islands by the State ; it proposes a credit fund to be opened for the assistance of every association of workpeople that asks assistance. Perhaps we should not be far wrong if we put Mr. Feargus O'Connor's total expenditure for 1852 at a hundred millions, instead of half that sum. It remains, then 1 , to be asked how the money is to be raised ; and we turn with no little interest to the article on taxation. It is particularly brief: — "Taxation on industry represses the production of wealth — on luxuries encourages Government in fostering excess — on necessary commodities acts injuriously on the people's health and comfort. All taxation ought, therefore, to be levied on land and accumulated property." As the State itself is to become the owner of the soil with the utmost despatch, and as the tenants are to be poor men holding small allotments and paying moderate corn rents, we apprehend this would come to the State taxing itself, and finding it no such easy affair to pay £100,000,000 per annum out of its own resources. Even under existing circumstances, with a general war, and with the screw applied by another William Pitt, we question whether £50,000,090 a year- could be extracted from land and accumulated property. Why, the rent of the soil is very little more. Mesrs. Reynolds and Co., as it seems to us, have already committed the commonest error of finance, They have failed in their first budget. Its ends do not meet. The expenditure is many millions over income, even on the most sanguine hypothesis. Of course, we cannot but regret that a scheme so magnificent should be defeated by these paltry considerations 5 but to speak the plain truth the scheme is 1 ather too magnificent. Its attempts to embrace every man who has a grievance is rather too comprehensive. "To stand forth," it says, "as the unitcr of all those insulated but homogeneous interests — to weld the millions into one compact mass, to evoke the dormant mind of the country, and thus launch the gathered power in the right direction, is the duty and endeavour of this delegation of the people." The difficulty, however, is that when every one is to receive there is nobody to pay, and when everybody is to be assisted there is nothing to fall back upon. The only real fund contemplated in all these costly operations is land, which is itself to be in a state of transition from the ruined owners to the moneyless State, and from the moneyless State to a million pauper tenants. As usual, it is proposed to create a show of money by some currency juggle, but when the pea had been tos&ed from one thimble to another the sum total would still be the same, and the sum total in the present case would soon be national, social, individual, industrial, political, bankruptcy.