WHAT IS A REVOLUTION?

THERE is no country perhaps where the truth in political matters is to be discovered with such difficulty as in England. The freedom of the press, which, in the drier topics of literature and science, is the real source of accuracy and knowledge, here diverts or obstructs our view by the constant misrepresentation of party feeling. The nature of our constitution, indeed, makes every political point a ground of general attachment to one side or the other: it is not merely that the leader of a party in the Houses of Parliament, or even his friends, maintain the struggle; but his friends also have their friends, they theirs, and so on through a long descending list of eager and active combatants: these too generally increasing in acrimony in proportion as they are farther removed from the original scene of action; each man's zeal being mixed up with some private and personal feeling that ties him individually to the cause. grounds his political creed on the tenets of his acquaintances or relations, another (and that by no means an uncommon case) on the hereditary sentiments of his family. For, are there indeed in any line of life that write, or speak, or think, according to abstract ideas of right or wrong, or that feel themselves calm and wholly disinterested on any material political question?

One

Nor does this peculiarity of our countrymen, though originating in the turn given to us by our form of government, limit itself to matters strictly speaking political. Every subject in England

becomes in one way or other a party question; at no time is a single new proposition admitted without the most violent, it might almost be said, interested discussion; and each new scheme that is brought forward, divides for a while the public mind. Whether a religious society shall distribute Bibles with or without the Common Prayer Book, whether children shall be inoculated for the small pox, or undergo vaccination, are questions in which every man in the country takes a part one way or other: nay, even the price of admission to a theatre becomes an object of riot with some, and with the rest, of eager and passionate debate. Newspapers and reviews are speedily enlisted on both sides. Those who do not think for themselves let these writers furnish them with their queue: they are then armed as their neighbours, and come forth boldly to the war of words.

Such then is, by the very nature of our constitution, the peculiar irritability of the public mind in this country. But at a moment when, to further this temperament, the minds of the higher classes are at once stimulated and unsettled by the rapid and encyclopadical modes of gaining general sketches of universal knowledge; while among the lower a new mode of education has put it in the power of every man, even the poorest in the realm, to read, and think, and reason may we not justly be led to inquire what alteration is under these circumstances produced in our condition? Should we not ask, what means have we yet devised to direct the new energies that will henceforth be developed amongst us? or what powers of government have we provided, that can keep pace with these advancements of the age? what means to satisfy the host of inquirers daily increasing in number as in intellectual strength?

We have arrived too at a point of elevation hitherto unknown in the civilised world, and one that calls for our utmost circumspection. While our population is already too numerous for our occasions, our machinery and inventions are daily encroaching on the legitimate province of honest industry. While imperfections have insensibly crept into our establishments at home, the long continued exertions of a war of twenty years, have forced the commercial and the monied world to a state precarious and insecure. And we observe with dismay, that while our press enjoys a freedom from control unknown elsewhere, our huge and unwieldy metropolis has grown to a size that exceeds by nearly one half, the capital of any, other European state.

Certain measures are applicable to certain times and circumstances; but when we reflect seriously on our condition, we can appeal to no maxims of experience applicable to such a state of things. We have an unknown world before us. We see no tract or trace of others, and to direct the helm of state under these circumstances, is to undertake a task hitherto uncommitted to the hand of man.

VOL. XIV.

Pam.

NO. XXVII.

D

moral inertia; these may occasion a less rapid descent, but have no power to arrest the course.

I shall hope for the communication of any observation or objections that may occur.

I am, &c.

D. G.

POSTSCRIPT.

JUST as the preceding sheets were sent to the press, a proposal has been made for advancing Six Millions, in the form of Exchequer Bills, to such Merchants and Manufacturers as may require the aid, under certain regulations; especially on their giving sufficient security for repayment after particular intervals.

The measure is grounded on the notoriety of immense accumulations of manufactured goods, and of foreign produce being retained at home, for want of sale: and on the slow or uncertain returns, for articles already exported to distant countries.

The sum is an actual Loan from the Nation at large to these individuals, whose capitals will receive a temporary augmentation to the whole amount; consequently they will be enabled to continue their usual concerns; and by so doing, to provide employ ment for large bodies of people, likely otherwise to suffer from want of work.

But the articles thus manufactured or imported, must be considered as forced additions to a stock already in excess; and the eventual benefit or disadvantage can only depend on the state of Europe and of the world, at a future period. If foreign markets become open to our trade, before this capital, artificially supplied, is exhausted, and certainly before the time arrives for its being replaced, the whole operation will be productive of good: but under different circumstances the evil day will merely be postponed, to arrive at last with a deepened gloom. Merchants and manufacturers might indeed, gradually let down their concerns to the level of actual circumstances, and by so doing avoid all sudden shocks; experience however seems scarcely to warrant our anticipating such conduct: an advance of capital appears much more likely to encourage further speculatious, with the hope of repairing

losses already incurred; and perhaps the example of Parliamentary aid in this particular case, may tend to excite very unreasonable expectations regarding the future.

In a former instance it is apprehended, that a part of the circulating medium withheld from common use, was drawn forth, by the incontestable securities placed in the hands of those to whom Exchequer Bills were advanced; and by the premium, beyond legal interest, which they were thus enabled to give.-No one conceives the present medium of circulation as deficient in amount; and should these loans from Government induce an increased issue of Notes by the Bank of England, or in any way support an enlarged quantity of Country Notes, the depreciation of paper currency must continue to augment.

A measure thus circumstanced, clearly beneficial in the first instance, to thousands suffering from actual want of employ, and of which the ultimate effects may also, by possibility, be good, could not receive any serious opposition in Parliament. The policy, however, of originating the measure, seems at least to admit of doubt.