" Another charge was the advocacy of "parochial
partnership in land, on the principle that the landholders are not
proprietors in chief; that they are but stewards of the public; that
the land is the people's farm; that landed monopoly is contrary to
the spirit of Christianity and destructive of the independence and
morality of mankind." The Reform party in Parliament endeavoured to
prove that the country was in no real danger, and that the singularly
harsh measures proposed were altogether unnecessary. That was true.
There was nothing to be feared, because there was no organisation;
but nevertheless, especially in the manufacturing towns, the
suffering was fearful and the hatred of the Government most bitter.
What is so lamentable in the history of those times is the
undisciplined wildness and feebleness of the attempts made by the
people to better themselves. Nothing is more saddening than the
spectacle of a huge mass of humanity goaded, writhing, starving, and
yet so ignorant that it cannot choose capable leaders, cannot obey
them if perchance it gets them, and does not even know how to name
its wrongs. The governing classes are apt to mistake the absurdity
of the manner in which a popular demand expresses itself for
absurdity of the demand itself; but in truth the absurdity of the
expression makes the demand more noteworthy and terrible.
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