(Schweizerischer Republikaner No. 39, May 16, 1843] 

The democratic party in England is making rapid progress. 
While Whiggism and Toryism, the moneyed aristocracy and the 
landed aristocracy are engaged in a boring verbal battle over 
trifles in the “national talkshop”, as the Tory Thomas Carlyle calls 
it, or in the “House which claims to represent the parishes of 
England”, as the Chartist Feargus O’Connor says, while the 
Established Church exerts all its influence on the bigoted inclina- 
tions of the nation in order to maintain its decaying edifice a little 
longer, while the Anti-Corn Law League'** squanders hundreds of 
thousands in the irrational hope to see in return millions flowing 
into the pockets of the cotton-manufacturing lords— during this 
time despised and derided socialism marches forward calmly and 
confidently and gradually compels the attention of public opinion. 
During this time, too, a new party of countless numbers has taken 
shape in a few years under the banner of the People’s Charter' 
and has carried out such vigorous agitation that compared with it 
O’Connell and the League are bunglers and blunderers. It is well 
known that in England parties coincide with social ranks and 
classes; that the Tories are identical with the aristocracy and the 
bigoted, strictly orthodox section of the Church of England; that 
the Whigs consist of manufacturers, merchants and dissenters, of 
the upper middle class as a whole; that the lower middle class 
constitute the so-called “radicals”, and that, finally, Chartism has 
its strength in the working men, the proletarians. Socialism does 
not form a closed political party, but on the whole it derives its 
supporters from the lower middle class and the proletarians. 
Thus, in England, the remarkable fact is seen that the lower the 

position of a class in society, the more “uneducated” it is in the 
usual sense of the word, the more closely is it connected with 
progress, and the greater is its future. In general, this is a feature 
of every revolutionary epoch, as was seen in particular in the 
religious revolution of which the outcome was Chnistianity: “blessed 
are the poor”,* “the wisdom of this world is foolishness”, etc. 
But this portent of a great revolution has probably never been so 
clearly expressed and so sharply delineated as now in England. In 
Germany, the movement proceeds from the class which is not only 
educated but even learned; in England, for three hundred years 
the educated and all the learned people have been deaf and blind 
to the signs of the times. Well known throughout the world is the 
pitiful routine of the English universities, compared with which 
our German colleges are like gold; but on the Continent people 
cannot even imagine the kind of works produced by the foremost 
English theologians and even by some of the foremost English 
natural scientists, and what miserable reactionary publications 
form the bulk of the weekly “list of new books”. England is the 
homeland of political economy, but what about the level of 
scholarship among professors and practical politicians? Adam 
Smith’s free trade has been pushed to the insane conclusions of 
the Malthusian theory of population and has produced nothing 
but a new, more civilised form of the old monopoly system, a form 
which finds its representatives among the present-day Tories, and 
which successfully combated the Malthusian nonsense, but in the 
end arrived once more at Malthus’ conclusions. Everywhere there 
is inconsistency and hypocrisy, while the striking economic tracts 
of the Socialists and partly also of the Chartists are thrown aside 
with contempt and find readers only among the lower classes. 
Strauss’ Das Leben Jesu was translated into English. Not a single 
“respectable” book publisher wanted to print it; finally it appeared 
in separate parts, 3d. per part, and that was done by the 
publishing house of a minor but energetic antiquarian.'* The 
same thing occurred with translations of Rousseau, Voltaire, 
Holbach, etc. Byron and Shelley are read almost exclusively by the 
lower classes; no “respectable” person could have the works of the 
latter on his desk without his coming into the most terrible 
disrepute. It remains true: blessed are the poor, for theirs is the 
kingdom of heaven and, however long it may take, the kingdom 
of this earth as well. 

Parliament now has before it Sir James Graham’s Bill on the 
education of children working in factories, in accordance with 
which their hours of work are to be restricted, compulsory 
education introduced, and the High Church entrusted with super- 
vision of the schools.'*' This Bill has, of course, given rise to 
general commotion and has provided the parties with a fresh 
opportunity for testing their strength. The Whigs want to have the 
Bill rejected completely because it ousts the dissenters from the 
education of the young and, by restricting the working hours of 
children, causes difficulties for the manufacturers. Among the 
Chartists and Socialists, on the other hand, there is considerable 
agreement with the general humane tendency of the Bill, except 
for the provisions relating to the High Church. Lancashire, the 
main factory centre, is also, of course, the main centre of agitation 
in regard to the Bill. Here, the Tories are quite powerless in the 
towns; moreover, their meetings in this connection were not held 
in public. The congregations of the dissenters first of all met in 
order to put forward a petition against the Bill, and then arranged 
for town meetings in alliance with the liberal manufacturers. A 
town meeting of this kind is summoned by the highest urban 
official, is completely public, and every inhabitant has the right to 
speak at it. Here, therefore, if the meeting hall is sufficiently large, 
only the strongest and most energetic party can be victorious. And 
at all the town meetings so far convened, the Chartists and 
Socialists have won. The first such meeting was in Stockport, 
where the resolutions put forward by the Whigs received only one 
vote, while the entire meeting voted for those of the Chartists, so 
that the Mayor of Stockport, a Whig, as chairman of the meeting 
had to sign a Chartist petition and send it to a Chartist M.P. 
(Duncombe) for presentation to Parliament. The second meeting 
was in Salford, a sort of suburb of Manchester, with a population 
of about 100,000; I attended it. The Whigs had taken every 
precaution to ensure victory for themselves. The borough reeve* 
took the chair and talked a great deal about impartiality; but when 
a Chartist asked whether a discussion would be allowed, he was 
given the reply: yes, when the meeting is over! It was intended to 
have the first resolution smuggled through, but the Chartists were 
on the alert and prevented this. When one of the Chartists 
climbed on to the platform, a clergyman dissenter came forward 
and tried to throw him off! However, everything went well until, 
finally, a petition on Whig lines was proposed. Then a Chartist 

spoke and proposed an amendment; thereupon the chairman and 
his whole retinue of Whigs rose and left the hall. But the meeting 
continued, and the Chartist petition was put to the vote; but police 
officers, who had already intervened several times on the side of 
the Whigs, put out the lights just at the right moment and forced 
the meeting to disperse. Nevertheless, the Whigs caused all their 
resolutions to be published, as carried, in the next issue of the 
local newspaper, and the borough reeve* was dishonest enough to 
sign his name “on behalf of and on the instructions of the 
meeting”! So much for Whig fairness! The third meeting took 
place two days later in Manchester, and here the radical parties 
likewise achieved a most brilliant victory. Although the time was so 
chosen that the majority of the factory workers could not be 
present, there was nevertheless a considerable majority of Char- 
tists and Socialists in the hall. The Whigs confined themselves 
solely to the points which they had in common with the Chartists; 
a Socialist and a Chartist spoke from the platform and bore 
witness that the Whigs on this occasion had behaved like good 
Chartists. The Socialist told them frankly that he had come with 
the intention of creating opposition if there was the slightest 
occasion for it, but everything had gone according to his wishes. 
So it has turned out, therefore, that Lancashire, and particularly 
Manchester, the stronghold of Whiggism, the centre of the 
Anti-Corn Law League, is able to show a brilliant majority in 
favour of radical democracy and thereby the power of the 
“liberals” is completely held in check. 

I] 

[Schweizerischer Republikaner No. 41, May 23, 1843} 

The Augsburg Allgemeine Zeitung has a liberal correspondent (*) in 
London who writes favourably about the manoeuvres of the Whigs 
in horribly long and boring articles. “The Anti-Corn Law League is 
now the power in the land,” declares this oracle and thereby utters 
the greatest lie ever told by a partisan correspondent.’ The 
League—the power in the land! Where is this power? In the 
Ministry? In it are Peel, Graham and Gladstone, the bitterest enemies 
of the League. In Parliament? But there every one of its proposals is 
rejected by a majority rarely equalled in the annals of the English 
Parliament. Where then is this power? In the public, in the nation? 
This question can only be answered in the affirmative by such an 

empty-headed, frivolous correspondent, for whom Drury Lane is the 
public and a drummed-up meeting is public opinion. If this 
sagacious correspondent is so blind as to be incapable of seeing in 
broad daylight — this is the legacy of the Whigs— then I will tell him 
how matters stand with the power of the League. It has been driven 
out of the Ministry and Parliament by the Tories, and out of public 
opinion by the Chartists. Feargus O’Connor has triumphantly routed 
it in all the towns of England, everywhere he has challenged it to a 
public debate and the League has never picked up the gage. The 
League cannot call a single public meeting without being most 
ignominiously trounced by the Chartists. Or does the Augsburg 
correspondent really not know that the pompous January meetings 
in Manchester and the meetings now being held in the Drury Lane 
theatre in London, where the liberal gentlemen tell one another lies 
and try to deceive themselves about their inner instability — does he 
really not know these are “whited sepulchres”? Who are admitted to 
these meetings? Only members of the League or persons to whom the 
League gives tickets. Hence no hostile party can have a chance of 
successful opposition there, and therefore no one applies for tickets; 
no matter what cunning it resorted to, it could not manage to 
smuggle in even a hundred of its supporters. The League has been 
organising such meetings, which are afterwards called “public”, for 
some years past and at them it congratulates itself on its “progress”. 
It is very becoming that at these “public” ticket meetings, the League 
rails against the “spectre of Chartism”, especially since it knows that 
at truly public meetings O’Connor, Duncombe, Cooper, etc., are 
giving a straightforward reply to those attacks. Up to now the 
Chartists have shattered every public meeting of the League by a 
brilliant majority, but the League has never been able to disrupt a 
Chartist meeting. Hence the League’s hatred of the Chartists, hence 
the clamour about the “disorder” caused by the Chartists at a 
meeting —that is to say, the rebellion of the majority against the 
minority, which from the platform tries to make use of the majority 
for its own ends. Where then is the power of the League?— In its 
imagination and—in its purse. The League is wealthy, by the 
abolition of the Corn Laws it hopes to conjure up a trade boom and 
therefore throws a sprat to catch a mackerel. Its subscriptions bring 
in considerable sums of money which cover the expenditure on all 
the pompous meetings and the rest of the appearance and tawdry 
finery. But behind this glittering exterior there is nothing real. The 
National Charter Association *— the Chartists’ organisation' — has 

a greater number of members, and it will soon be seen that it can also 
collect more money, although it consists only of poor workers, while 
the League has all the rich manufacturers and merchants in its ranks. 
And the reason is that the Chartist Association gets its money — even 
if only in pennies— from nearly every one of its members, whereas 
although considerable sums of money are contributed to the League, 
they come only from certain individuals. The Chartists can easily 
collect a million pennies'* weekly; it is very questionable whether the 
League could sustain this. The League opened a subscription list for 
£50,000 and received about £70,000. Feargus O’Connor is about to 
open a subscription list of £125,000 for one project'* and soon 
afterwards perhaps another for an equal amount — he will certainly 
get it— and what does the League then intend to do with its “huge 
funds”? 

Why the Chartists are in opposition to the League will be dealt with 
on another occasion.'* For the present only one further remark, viz., 
that the efforts and work of the League have one good side. This is 
the movement which is being aroused by the Anti-Corn Law 
agitation in a hitherto entirely stable class of society — the agricultur- 
al population. Up to now the latter has taken no interest in public 
affairs; dependent on the landowners who can put an end to the 
lease agreement any year, the farmers, phlegmatic and ignorant, 
have sent only Tories to Parliament year after year— 251 out of the 
658 members of the House of Commons—and up to now this has 
been the strong basis of the reactionary party. If an individual 
farmer wanted to come out against this traditional vote, he found no 
support among his fellow farmers and the landlord could easily give 
him notice. Now, however, a considerable alertness among this class 
of the population is evident; there already exist liberal farmers, and 
among them there are people who realise that in very many cases 
the interests of the landlord and those of the tenant are directly 
opposed. Three years ago, particularly in England herself, no one 
could have said this to a tenant without being laughed at or even 
beaten up. Among this class the work of the League will bear fruit, 
but quite certainly the fruit will be different from what the League 
expects, for while it is probable that the mass of the tenants will 
gradually go over to the Whigs, it is still more probable that the mass 
of the agricultural labourers will be impelled to take the side of the 
Chartists. One without the other is impossible, and thus here, too, 
the League will obtain only feeble compensation for the decisive and 
total withdrawal from it of the working class which the League has 
_ suffered during the past five years in the towns and factory districts 
owing to Chartism. The kingdom of the juste-milieu has had its day 

and the “power in the land” has become divided into two extremes. 
In view of these undeniable facts, however, I ask the correspondent 
of the Augsburg Allgemeine Zeitung: Where is the “power of the 
League”? 

II 

[Schweizerischer Republikaner No. 46, June 9, 1843] 

The English Socialists are far more principled and practical than 
the French, which is especially due to the fact that they are 
engaged in. an open struggle against the various churches and do 
not want to have anything to do with religion. In the larger towns — 
they usually maintain a hall* where every Sunday they listen to 
speeches which are often polemical against Christianity and atheis- 
tic, but often also dea] with some aspect of the workers’ life; of 
their lecturers (preachers) Watts in Manchester seems at any rate 
to be an outstanding man, who has written some very talented 
pamphlets on the existence of God and on political economy. The 
lecturers have a very good manner of arguing; they always start 
out from experience and from verifiable or obvious facts and at 
the same time the exposition is carried out in such a systematic 
way that it is very difficult to fight them on the ground they have 
chosen. If anyone tries to carry the argument into a different 
sphere they laugh in his face. If, for example, I say: For man the 
existence of God does not depend on facts for its proof, they 
retort: “What a ridiculous proposition you put forward: if God 
does not manifest Himself through facts, why should we want to 
trouble ourselves about Him? From your proposition it follows 
directly that it is a matter of indifference to people whether God 
exists or does not exist. And since we have thousands of other 
things to care about, we leave to you the good God above the 
clouds, where perhaps He exists, or perhaps does not exist. What 
we do not know through facts does not concern us at all; we keep 
to the basis of ‘real facts’, where there can be no question of such 
fantastic things as God and religious theories.” So the rest of their 
communist propositions are supported by proof based on facts, in 
accepting which they are indeed careful. The stubbornness of 
these people is indescribable, and how the clergy are going to win 
them over— heaven alone knows. In Manchester, for instance, the 
communist community has 8,000 members openly registered at 

the hall and paying their subscriptions to it. The assertion that 
half of the working classes of Manchester share their views on 
property is no exaggeration; because when Watts says from the 
platform (for the Communists the platform is what the pulpit is 
for the Christians): Today I am going to one or other meeting, 
you can count on it that the motion put by the lecturer will have a 
majority. 

But among the Socialists, too, there are theoreticians or, as the 
Communists call them, complete atheists, while the former are 
called practical atheists. Of these theoreticians the most famous is 
Charles Southwell in Bristol, who published a polemical journal 
The Oracle of Reason and was punished for that by a year’s 
imprisonment and a fine of about £100. Of course, the fine was 
quickly covered by subscriptions, for every Englishman subscribes 
to his newspaper, helps his leaders to pay fines, pays for his chapel 
or hall, attends his meetings. But Charles Southwell is already in 
prison again; in fact the hall in Bristol had to be sold because 
there are not so many Socialists in Bristol and among them few 
are rich, whereas such a hall is a fairly expensive thing. It was 
bought by a Christian denomination and converted into a chapel. 
When this new chapel was consecrated, the Socialists and Chartists 
crowded into it to see and hear the ceremony. But when the 
clergyman began to praise God that all the wicked doings had 
been ended, and that where formerly God had been defamed, 
praises would now be sung to the Almighty, they regarded this as 
an attack, and since according to English notions every attack 
demands resistance, they raised a shout of Southwell, Southwell! 
Let Southwell speak in opposition! Southwell therefore got up and 
began to make a speech. Now, however, clergymen of the 
Christian denomination put themselves at the head of the columns 
of their parishioners and hurled themselves on Southwell; other 
members of the denomination called in the police, because 
Southwell was said to have disturbed a Christian religious service; 
the clergymen laid hold of him, struck him (as often happens in 
such cases) and handed him over to a policeman. Southwell 
himself ordered his supporters not to offer physical resistance; 
when he was led away, some 6,000 people followed him crying 
“hurrah” and cheering him. 

The founder of the socialist movement, Owen, writes in his 
numerous booklets like a German philosopher, i.e., very badly, but 
at times he has his lucid moments and then his obscure writings 
become readable; moreover, his views are comprehensive. Accord- 
ing to Owen “marriage, religion and property are the sole causes 

of all the calamity that has existed since the world began” (!!),!*’ 
all his writings teem with outbursts of rage against the theologians, 
lawyers and doctors, all of whom he lumps together. “The 
law-courts are the seat of a class of people which is still completely 
theological and therefore prejudiced; the laws also are imbued with 
theology and must therefore be abolished together with the jury.” 

While the Church of England lived in luxury, the Socialists did 
an incredible amount to educate the working classes in England. 
At first one cannot get over one’s surprise on hearing in the Hall 
of Science* the most ordinary workers speaking with a clear 
understanding on political, religious and social affairs; but when 
one comes across the remarkable popular pamphlets and hears the 
lecturers of the Socialists, for example Watts in Manchester, one 
ceases to be surprised. The workers now have good, cheap 
editions of translations of the French philosophical works of the 
last century, chiefly Rousseau’s Contrat social, the Systéme de la 
Nature' and various works by Voltaire, and in addition the 
exposition of communist principles in penny and twopenny pam- 
phlets and in the journals. The workers also have in their hands 
cheap editions of the writings of Thomas Paine and Shelley. 
Furthermore, there are also the Sunday lectures, which are very 
diligently attended; thus during my stay in Manchester I saw the 
Communist Hall, which holds about 3,000 people, crowded every 
Sunday, and I heard there speeches which have a direct effect, 
which are made from the special viewpoint of the people, and in 
which witty remarks against the clergy occur. It happens frequent- 
ly that Christianity is directly attacked and Christians are called 
“our enemies”. 

In their form, these meetings partly resemble church gather- 
ings; in the gallery a choir accompanied by an orchestra sings 
social hymns; these consist of semi-religious or wholly religious 
melodies with communist words, during which the audience 
stands. Then, quite nonchalantly, without removing his hat, a 
lecturer comes on to the platform, on which there is a table and 
chairs; after raising his hat by way of greeting those present, he 
takes off his overcoat and then sits down and delivers his address, 
which usually gives much occasion for laughter, for in these 
speeches the English intellect expresses itself in superabundant 
humour. In one corner of the hall is a stall where books and 
pamphlets are sold and in another a booth with oranges and 
refreshments, where everyone can obtain what he needs or to 

which he can withdraw if the speech bores him. From time to time 
tea-parties are arranged on Sunday evenings at which people of 
both sexes, of all ages and classes, sit together and partake of the 
usual supper of tea and sandwiches; on working days dances and 
concerts are often held in the hall, where people have a very jolly 
time; the hall also has a café. 

How does it happen that all this kind of thing is tolerated? 
Firstly, under the Whig Ministry the Communists secured the 
passage of an Act of Parliament and in general achieved such a 
strong position at that time that now, as being a corporation, it is 
no longer possible to take any steps against them. Secondly, the 
authorities would very much like to attack prominent individuals, 
but they know that this would only redound to the advantage of 
the Socialists by drawing public attention to them, which is what 
the Socialists want. If they were to become martyrs for their cause 
(and how many of them would be ready for that at any time), it 
would give rise to agitation. But agitation is a means of making 
their cause still more widely known, whereas at present a large 
part of the nation takes no notice of them, regarding them as a 
sect like any other. The Whigs knew very well that repressive 
measures have a stronger effect in favour of a cause than agitation 
for the cause itself, and hence they gave the Communists an 
opportunity to exist and take form; but every form is a bond. The 
Tories, on the other hand, take some action against them when 
the atheistic publications seem too outrageous, but every time it is 
to the advantage of the Communists. In December 1840, South- 
well and others were punished for blasphemy; immediately three 
new periodicals appeared: one was The Atheist, another The Atheist 
and Republican, and the third, published by the lecturer Watts, The 
Blasphemer. A few issues of The Blasphemer caused a great sensa- 
tion, and the authorities tried in vain to discover how this trend 
could be suppressed. They left it alone, and lo and behold, all 
three papers ceased to exist! 

Thirdly, the Socialists, like all the other parties, save themselves 
by circumventing the law and resorting to verbal quibbles, which is 
the regular practice here. 

Thus everything here displays life and cohesion, a solid basis 
and action; thus everything here is assuming a definite external 
shape; whereas we imagine that we know something if we have 
swallowed the dull, miserable contents of Stein’s book,? or that we 

are of some importance if somewhere or other we utter an 
opinion perfumed with attar of roses. 

In the Socialists, English energy is very clearly evident, but what 
astonished me more was the good-natured character of these 
people, I almost called them lads, which, however, is so far 
removed from weakness that they laugh at the mere Republicans, 
because a republic would be just as hypocritical, just as theological, 
just as unjust in its laws, as a monarchy; but for the reform of 
society they are ready to sacrifice their worldly goods and life 
itself together with their wives and children. 

IV 

[Schweizerischer Republikaner No. 51, June 27, 1843] 

One hears nothing now but talk about O’Connell and the Irish 
Repeal* (abolition of the Union of Ireland and England).'*° 
O’Connell, the cunning old lawyer, who during the Whig govern- 
ment sat calmly in the House of Commons and helped to pass 
“liberal” measures in order to be rejected. by the House of Lords, 
O’Connell has suddenly left London and absented himself from 
the parliamentary debates and is now raising again his old 
question of repeal. No one was thinking about it any more; and 
then Old Dan? turns up in Dublin and is again raking up the stale 
obsolete lumber. It is not surprising that the old yeast is now 
producing remarkable air-bubbles. The cunning old fox is going 
from town to town, always accompanied by a bodyguard such as 
no king ever had—two hundred thousand people always sur- 
round him! How much could have been done if a sensible man 
possessed O’Connell’s popularity or if O’Connell had a little more 
understanding. and a little less egoism and vanity! Two hundred 
thousand men—and what men! People who have nothing to lose, 
two-thirds of whom are clothed in rags, genuine proletarians and 
sansculottes and, moreover, Irishmen, wild, headstrong, fanatical 
Gaels. One who has never seen Irishmen cannot know them. Give 
me two hundred thousand Irishmen and I will overthrow the 
entire British monarchy. The Irishman is a carefree, cheerful, 
potato-eating child of nature. From his native heath, where he 
grew up, under a broken-down roof, on weak tea and meagre 
food, he is suddenly thrown into our civilisation. Hunger drives 

him to England. In the mechanical, egoistic, ice-cold hurly-burly of 
the English factory towns, his passions are aroused. What does this 
raw young fellow—whose youth was spent playing on moors and 
begging at the roadside—know of thrift? He squanders what he 
earns, then he starves until the next pay-day or until he again 
finds work. He is accustomed to going hungry. Then he goes 
back, seeks out the members of his family on the road where they 
had scattered in order to beg, from time to time assembling again 
around the teapot, which the mother carries with her. But in 
England the Irishman saw a great deal, he attended public meet- 
ings and workers’ associations, he knows what Repeal is 
and what Sir Robert Peel stands for, he quite certainly has often 
had fights with the police and could tell you a great deal.about the 
heartlessness and disgraceful behaviour of the “Peelers”* (the 
police). He has also heard a lot about Daniel O’Connell. Now he 
once more returns to his old cottage with its bit of land for 
potatoes. The potatoes are ready for harvesting, he digs them up, 
and now he has something to live on during the winter. But here 
the principal tenant'° appears, demanding the rent. Good God, 
where’s the money to come from? The principal tenant is 
responsible to the landowner for the rent, and therefore has his 
property attached. The Irishman offers resistance and is thrown 
into gaol. Finally, he is set free again, and soon afterwards the 
principal tenant or someone else who took part in the attachment of 
the property is found dead in a ditch. ; 

That is a story from the life of the Irish proletarians which is of 
daily occurrence. The half-savage upbringing and later the com- 
pletely civilised environment bring the Irishman into contradiction 
with himself, into a state of permanent irritation, of continually 
smouldering fury, which makes him capable of anything. In 
addition he bears the burden of five centuries of oppression with 
all its consequences. Is it surprising that, like any other half- 
savage, he strikes out blindly and furiously on every opportunity, 
that his eyes burn with a perpetual thirst for revenge, a destructive 
fury, for which it is altogether a matter of indifference what it is 
directed against, so long as it can strike out and destroy? But that 
is not all. The violent national hatred of the Gaels against the 
Saxons, the orthodox Catholic fanaticism fostered by the clergy 
against Protestant-episcopal arrogance—with these elements any- 
thing can be accomplished. And all these elements are in O’Con- 
nell’s hands. And what a multitude of people are at his disposal! 

The day before yesterday in Cork—150,000 men, yesterday 
in Nenaph—200,000, today in Kilkenny—400,000, and so 
it goes on. A triumphal procession lasting a fortnight, a triumphal 
procession such as no Roman emperor ever had. And if O’Connell 
really had the welfare of the people in view, if he were really 
concerned to abolish poverty—if his miserable, petty juste-milieu 
aims were not behind all the clamour and the agitation for 
Repeal—1I should truly like to know what Sir Robert Peel could 
refuse him if he demanded it while at the head of such a force as 
he now has. But what does he achieve with all his power and his 
millions of valiant and desperate Irishmen? He is unable to 
accomplish even the wretched Repeal of the Union; of course 
solely because he is not serious about it, because he is misusing the 
impoverished, oppressed Irish people in order to embarrass 
the Tory Ministers and to put back into office his juste-milieu 
friends. Sir Robert Peel, too, knows this well enough, and hence 
25,000 soldiers are quite enough to keep all Ireland in check. If 
O’Connell were really the man of the people, if he had sufficient 
courage and were not himself afraid of the people, i.e., if he were not a 
double-faced Whig, but an upright, consistent democrat, then the 
last English soldier would have left Ireland long since, there would 
no longer be any idle Protestant priest in purely Catholic districts, 
or any Old-Norman baron in his castle. But there is the rub. If the 
people were to be set free even for a moment, then Daniel 
O’Connell and his moneyed aristocrats would soon be just as much 
left high and dry as he wants to leave the Tories high and dry. 
That is the reason for Daniel’s close association with the Catholic 
clergy, that is why he warns his Irishmen against dangerous 
socialism, that is why he rejects the support offered by the 
Chartists,'*' although for appearances sake he now and again 
talks about democracy— just as Louis Philippe in his day talked 
about Republican institutions—and that is why he will never 
succeed in achieving anything but the political education of the 
Irish people, which in the long run is to no one more dangerous 
than to himself.