ENGLISH PROSPERITY.—STRIKES.— 
THE TURKISH QUESTION.—INDIA' 

London, Friday, June 17, 1853 

The declared value of British exports for the month of 

April, 1853; amounts: 06 sic. ss sccponuveseaesanadcaoneteseeteseden £ 7,578,910 
Apainst, fot April, 1852 scien soradiniceesieinseastuanes 5,268,915 
For four months ending April 30[1853] ................ 27,970,633 
Against the same months of 1852 ..............eeesceeseeeees 21,844,663 

Showing an increase, in the former instance, of £2,309,995, or 
upward of 40 per cent.; and in the latter of £6,125,970, or nearly 
28 per cent. Supposing the increase to continue at the same rate, 
the total exports of Great Britain would amount, at the close of 
1853, to more than £100,000,000. 

The Times, in communicating these startling items to its readers, 
indulged in a kind of dithyrambics, concluding with the words: 
“We are all happy, and all united.”* This agreeable discovery had 
no sooner been trumpeted forth, than an almost general system of 
strikes burst over the whole surface of England, particularly in the 
industrial North, giving a strange echo to the song of harmony 
tuned by The Times. These strikes are the necessary consequence 
of a comparative decrease in the labor-surplus, coinciding with a 
general rise in the prices of the first necessaries. 5,000 hands 
struck at Liverpool, 35,000 at Stockport, and so on, until at length 
the very police force was seized by the epidemic, and 250 

English Prosperity 135 

constables at Manchester offered their ‘resignation. On_ this 
occasion the middle-class press, for instance The Globe, lost all 
countenance, and foreswore its usual philanthropic effusions. It 
calumniated, injured, threatened, and called loudly upon the 
magistrates for interference, a thing which has actually been done 
at Liverpool in all cases where the remotest legal pretext could be 
invoked. These magistrates, when not themselves manufacturers 
or traders, as is commonly the case in Lancashire and Yorkshire, 
are at least intimately connected with, and dependant on, the 
commercial interest. They have permitted manufacturers to escape 
from the Ten-Hours Act, to evade the Truck Act,’ and to 
infringe with impunity all other acts passed expressly against the 
“unadorned” rapacity of the manufacturer, while they interpret 
the Combination Act'! always in the most prejudiced and most 
unfavorable manner for the workingman. These same “gallant” 
freetraders, renowned for their indefatigability in denouncing 
government interference, these apostles of the bourgeois doctrine 
of laissez-faire, who profess to leave everything and everybody to 
the struggles of individual interest, are always the first to appeal to 
the interference of Government as soon as the individual interests 
of the workingman come into conflict with their own class 
interests. In such moments of collision they look with open 
admiration at the Continental States, where despotic governments, 
though, indeed, not allowing the bourgeoisie to rule, at least 
prevent the workingmen from resisting. In what manner the 
revolutionary party propose to make use of the present great 
conflict between masters and men, I’ have no better means of 
explaining than by communicating to you the following letter, 
addressed to me by Ernest Jones, the Chartist leader, on the eve 
of his departure for Lancashire, where the campaign is to be 
opened: 

‘““My Dear Marx: ... To-morrow, I start for Blackstone-Edge, where a camp-meet- 
ing of the Chartists of Yorkshire and Lancashire is to take place, and I am happy to 
inform you that the most extensive preparations for the same are making in the 
North. It is now seven years since a really: national gathering NY took place on that 
spot sacred to the traditions of the Chartist movement, and the object of the 
present gathering is as follows: Through the treacheries and divisions of 1848, the 
disruption of the organization then existing, by the incarceration and banishment 
of 500 of its leading men—through the thinning of its ranks by emigration— 
through the deadening of political energy by the influences of brisk trade—the 
national movement of Chartism had converted itself into isolated action, and the 
organization dwindled at the very time that social knowledge spread. Meanwhile, a 
labor movement rose on the ruins of the political one—a labor movement 
emanating from the first blind gropings of social knowledge. This labor movement 
showed itself at first in isolated cooperative attempts: then, when these were found 

to fail, in an energetic action for a ten-hour’s bill, a restriction of the moving 
power, an abolition of the stoppage system in wages, and a fresh interpretation of 
the Combination Bill. To these measures, good in themselves, the whole power and 
attention of the working classes was directed. The failure of the attempts to obtain 
legislative guaranties for these measures has thrown a more revolutionary tendency 
in the labor-mind of Britain. The opportunity is thus afforded for rallying the 
masses around the standard of real Social Reform; for it must be evident to all, 
that however good the measures above alluded to may be, to meet the passing 
exigencies of the moment, they offer no guaranties for the future, and embody no 
fundamental principle of social right. The opportunity thus given for a movement, 
the power for successfully carrying it out, is also afforded by the circumstances of 
the present time—the discontent of the people being accompanied by an amount 
of popular power which the comparative scarcity of workingmen affords in relation 
to the briskness of trade. Strikes are prevalent everywhere and generally successful. 
But it is lamentable to behold that the power which might be directed to a 
fundamental remedy, should be wasted on a temporary palliative. I am, therefore, 
attempting, in reorganizing with numerous friends, to seize this great opportunity 
for uniting the scattered ranks of Chartism on the sound principles of social 
revolution. For this purpose I have succeeded in reorganizing the dormant and 
extinct localities, and arranging for what I trust will be a general and imposing 
demonstration throughout England. The new campaign begins by the camp- 
meeting on Blackstone-Edge, to be followed by mass meetings in all the 
manufacturing Counties, while our agents are at work in the agricultural districts, 
so aS to unite the agricultural mind with the rest of the industrial body, a point 
which has hitherto been neglected in our movement. The first step will be a 
demand for the Charter, emanating from these mass meetings of the people, 
and an attempt to press a motion on our corrupt Parliament for the enactment of 
that measure, expressly and explicitly as the only means for Social Reform—a 
phase under which it has not yet been presented to the House. If the working 
classes support this movement, as I anticipate, from their response to my appeal, 
the result must be important; for, in case of refusal on the part of Parliament, the 
hollow professions of sham-liberals and philanthropic Tories will be exposed, and 
their last hold on popular credulity will be destroyed. In case of their consenting to 
entertain and discuss the motion, a torrent will be loosened which it will not be in 
the power of temporising expediency to stop. For you must be aware, from your 
close study of English politics, that there is no longer any pith or any strength in 
aristocracy or moneyocracy to resist any serious movement of the people. The 
governing powers consist only of a confused jumble of worn-out factions, that have 
run together like a ship’s crew that have quarreled among themselves, join all 
hands at the pump to save the leaky vessel. There is no strength in them, and the 
throwing of a few drops of bilge water into the democratic ocean will be utterly 
powerless to allay the raging of its waves. Such, my friend, is the opportunity I now 
behold—such is the power wherewith I hope to see it used, and such is the first 
immediate object to which that power shall be directed. On the result of the first 
demonstration I shall again write to you. 

“Yours truly, Ernest Jones.” 

That there is no prospect at all of the intended Chartist petition 
being taken into consideration by Parliament, needs not to be 
proved by argument. Whatever illusions may have been enter- 
tained on this point, they must now vanish before the fact, that 

English Prosperity 137 

Parliament has just rejected, by a majority of 60 votes, the 
proposition for the ballot introduced by Mr. Berkeley, and 
advocated by Messrs. Phillimore, Cobden, Bright, Sir Robert Peel, 
etc. And this is done by the very Parliament which went to the ut- 
most in protesting against the intimidation and bribery employed 
at its own election, and neglected for months all serious business, 
for the whim of decimating itself in election inquiries. The only 
remedy, purity Johnny* has yet found out against bribery, 
intimidation and corrupt practices, has been the disfranchisement, 
or rather the narrowing of constituencies. And there is no doubt 
that, if he had succeeded in making the constituencies of the same 
small size as himself, the Oligarchy would be able to get their votes 
without the trouble and expense of buying them. Mr. Berkeley’s 
resolution was rejected by the combined Tories and Whigs, their 
common interest being at stake: the preservation of their 
territorial influence over the tenants at will, the petty shopkeepers 
and other retainers of the land-owner. “Who has to pay his rent, 
has to pay his vote,” is an old adage of the glorious British 
Constitution. 

Last Saturday The Press, a new weekly paper under the influence 
of Mr. Disraeli, made a curious disclosure to the public of 
England, as follows: 

“Early in the spring Baron Brunnow communicated to Lord Clarendon the 
demand which the Emperor of Russia” was about to make on the Porte, that he did 
so with a statement that the object of the communication was to ascertain the 
feeling of England on the subject—that Lord Clarendon made no objection, nor in 
any way discouraged the intended course, and that the Muscovite diplomatist 

communicated to his imperial master that England was not indisposed to connive at 
his designs on the Golden Horn.” “ 

Now, The Times of yesterday had an elaborate and official 
article emanating from the Foreign Office, in answer to the grave 
charge of Mr. Disraeli, but which, in my opinion, tends rather to 
strengthen than to refute that charge. The Times asserts that, early 
in the spring, before the arrival of Prince Menchikoff at 
Constantinople, Baron Brunnow made a complaint to Lord John 
Russell, that the Porte had revoked the privileges conferred on the 
Greek clergy by treaty, and that Lord John Russell, conceiving the 
matter only to concern the Holy Places, gave his assent to the 
designs of the Czar. But The Times is compelled at the same time 
to concede that after Prince Menchikoff’s arrival at Constan- 

© Rendering of a passage from a report in The Press, No. 6, June 11, 1853.— Ed. 

tinople, and when Lord John Russell had been replaced by Lord 
Clarendon at the Foreign Office, Baron Brunnow made a further 
communication to Lord Clarendon “purporting to convey the 
sense of his instructions, and some of the expressions used in the 
letter of credentials of which Prince Menchikoff was the bearer 
from the Emperor of Russia to the Sultan.*” Simultaneously, The 
Times admits that “Lord Clarendon gave his assent to the 
demands communicated by Baron Brunnow.” Evidently this 
second communication must have contained something more than 
what had been communicated to Lord John Russell. The matter, 
therefore, cannot stop with this declaration. Either Baron Brun- 
now must turn out a diplomatical cheat, or my Lords Clarendon 
and Aberdeen are traitors. We shall see. 

It may be of interest to your readers to become acquainted with 
a document concerning the Eastern question, which was recently 
published in a London newspaper.” It is a proclamation issued by 
the Prince of Armenia, now residing in London, and distributed 
among the Armenians in Turkey: 

“Leo, by the grace of God, sovereign Prince of Armenia, &c., to the Armenians 
in Turkey: 

“Beloved brothers and faithful countrymen.—Our will and our ardent wish is 
that you should defend to the last drop of your blood your country and the Sultan 
against the tyrant of the North. Remember, my brothers, that in Turkey there are 
no knouts, they do not tear your nostrils and your women are not flogyed, secretly 
or in public. Under the reign of the Sultan, there is humanity, while under that of 
the tyrant of the North there are nothing but atrocities. Therefore place yourselves 
under the direction of God, and fight bravely for the liberty of your country and 
your present sovereign. Pull down your houses to make barricades, and if you have 
no arms, break your furniture and defend yourselves with it. May Heaven guide 
you on your path to glory. My only happiness will be to fight in the midst of you 
against the oppressor of your country, and your creed. May God incline the 
Sultan’s heart to sanction my demand, because under his reign, our religion 
remains in its pure form, while, under the Northern tyrant, it will be altered. 
Remember, at least, brothers, that the blood that runs in the veins of him who now 
addresses you, is the blood of twenty kings, it is the blood of heroes— Lusignans— 
and defenders of our faith; and we say to you, let us defend our creed and its 
pure form, until our last drop of blood.” 

On the 13th inst. Lord Stanley gave notice to the House of 
Commons that on the second reading of the India Bill (23d inst.) 
he would bring in the following resolution: 

“That in the opinion of this House further information is necessary to enable 
Parliament to legislate with advantage for the permanent government of India, and 

The Daily News, No. 2207, June 17, 1853.— Ed. 

English Prosperity 139 

that at this late period of the session, it is inexpedient to proceed into a measure, 
which, while it disturbs existing arrangements, cannot be regarded as a final 
settlement.” * 

But in April, 1854, the Charter of the East India Company will 
expire, and something accordingly must be done in one way or the 
other. The Government wanted to legislate permanently; that is, 
to renew the Charter for twenty years more. The Manchester 
School wanted to postpone all legislation, by prolonging the 
Charter at the utmost for one year.—The Government said that 
permanent legislation was necessary for the “best” of India. The 
Manchester men replied that it was impossible for want of 
information. The “best” of India, and the want of information, 
are alike false pretences. The governing oligarchy desired, before 
a Reformed House should meet, to secure at the cost of India, 
their own “best” for twenty years to come. The Manchester men 
desired no legislation at all in the unreformed Parliament, where 
their views had no chance of success. Now, the Coalition Cabinet, 
through Sir Charles Wodd, has, in contradiction to its former 
statements, but in conformity with its habitual system of shifting 
difficulties, brought in something that looked like legislation; but it 
dared not, on the other hand, to propose the renewal of the 
Charter for any definite period, but presented a “settlement,” 
which it left to Parliament to unsettle whenever that body should 
determine to do so. If the Ministerial propositions were adopted, 
the East India Company would obtain no renewal, but only a 
suspension of life. In all other respects, the Ministerial project but 
apparently alters the Constitution of the India Government, the 
only serious novelty to be introduced being the addition of some 
new Governors, although a long experience has proved that the 
parts of East India administered by simple Commissioners, go on 
much better than those blessed with the costly luxury of 
Governors and Councils. The Whig invention of alleviating 
exhausted countries by burdening them with new sinecures for the 
paupers of aristocracy, reminds one of the old Russell administra- 
tion, when the Whigs were suddenly struck with the state of 
spiritual destitution, in which the Indians and Mahommedans of 
the East were living, and determined upon relieving them by the 
importation of some new Bishops, the Tories, in the plenitude of 
their power, having never thought more than one to be necessary. 
That resolution having been agreed upon, Sir John Hobhouse, the 
then Whig President of the Board of Control, discovered 

immediately afterwards, that he had a relative admirably suited for 
a Bishopric, who was forthwith appointed to one of the new sees. 
“In cases of this kind,” remarks an English writer, “where the fit 
is sO exact, it is really hardly possible to say, whether the shoe was 
made for the foot, or the foot for the shoe.” Thus with regard to 
the Charles Wood’s invention; it would be very difficult to say, 
whether the new Governors are made for Indian provinces, or 
Indian provinces for the new Governors. 

Be this as it may, the Coalition Cabinet believed it had met all 
clamors by leaving to Parliament the power of altering its 
proposed act at all times. Unfortunately in steps Lord Stanley, the 
Tory, with his resolution which was loudly cheered by the 
“Radical’”” Opposition, when it was announced. Lord Stanley’s 
resolution is nevertheless self-contradictory. On one hand, he 
rejects the Ministerial proposition, because the House requires 
more information for permanent legislation. On the other hand, 
he rejects it, because it is no permanent legislation, but alters 
existing arrangements, without pretending to finality. The Conser- 
vative view is, of course, opposed to the bill, because it involves a 
change of some kind. The Radical view is opposed to it, because it 
involves no real change at all. Lord Stanley, in these coalescent 
times has found a formula in which the opposite views are 
combined together against the Ministerial view of the subject. The 
Coalition Ministry affects a virtuous indignation against such 
tactics, and The Chronicle, its organ, exclaims: 

“Viewed as a party-move the proposed motion for delay is in a high degree 
factious and discreditable.... This motion is brought forward solely because some 

supporters of the Ministry are pledged to separate in this particular question from 
those with whom they usually act.”* 

The anxiety of Ministers seems indeed to be serious. The 
Chronicle of to-day, again recurring to the subject, says: 

“The division on Lord Stanley’s motion will probably be decisive of the fate of 
the India Bill; it is therefore of the utmost importance that those who feel the 

importance of early legislation, should use every exertion to strengthen the 
Government.” 

On the other hand, we read in The Times of to-day: 

“The fate of the Government India Bill has been more respectively 
delineated.... The danger of the Government lies in the entire conforming of Lord 

The Morning Chronicle, No. 26983, June 17, 1853.— Ed. 

English Prosperity 141 

Stanley’s objections with the conclusions of public opinion. Every syllable of this 
amendment tells with deadly effect against the ministry.”* 

I shall expose in a subsequent letter,” the bearing of the Indian 
Question on the different parties in Great Britain, and the benefit 
the poor Hindoo may reap from this quarreling of the 
aristocracy, the moneyocracy and the millocracy about his 
amelioration.