(_Although Cobbett produced not a few political pamphlets in the
strictest sense of the term, the infinitely greater part of his work
is comprised during his earlier days in the volumes of _Peter
Porcupine's Gazette_, during his later in those of the _Weekly
Register_. This latter, however, he himself for a time actually
entitled _The Weekly Political Pamphlet_, while he alluded to it under
that name even at other times; and his whole work was imbued even more
deeply than that of Defoe with the pamphlet character. I have selected
two examples from the critical time when he was still exasperated by
his imprisonment, and stung into fresh efforts by debt and the
prospect of fresh difficulties. They exhibit in the most striking form
all Cobbett's pet hatreds--of the unreformed Parliament, of paper
money, of political economy, of potatoes, and of many other things.
The first is the _Register_ of 2d November 1816, the first number of
the cheapened form, which was sold at twopence, and so acquired the
name of 'Twopenny Trash,' from a phrase of, as some say, Canning's,
others Castlereagh's. The second is an early number of the papers
written from America. They will, with the notes, explain themselves._)
LETTER TO THE JOURNEYMEN AND LABOURERS OF ENGLAND, WALES, SCOTLAND,
AND IRELAND, ON THE CAUSE OF THEIR PRESENT MISERIES; ON THE MEASURES
WHICH HAVE PRODUCED THAT CAUSE; ON THE REMEDIES WHICH SOME FOOLISH AND
SOME CRUEL AND INSOLENT MEN HAVE PROPOSED; AND ON THE LINE OF CONDUCT
WHICH JOURNEYMEN AND LABOURERS OUGHT TO PURSUE, IN ORDER TO OBTAIN
EFFECTUAL RELIEF, AND TO ASSIST IN PROMOTING THE TRANQUILLITY AND
RESTORING THE HAPPINESS OF THEIR COUNTRY.
Friends And Fellow-countrymen--Whatever the pride of rank, of riches,
or of scholarship may have induced some men to believe, or to affect
to believe, the real strength and all the resources of a country ever
have sprung and ever must spring from the _labour_ of its people; and
hence it is that this nation, which is so small in numbers and so poor
in climate and soil compared with many others, has, for many ages,
been the most powerful nation in the world: it is the most
industrious, the most laborious, and, therefore, the most powerful.
Elegant dresses, superb furniture, stately buildings, fine roads and
canals, fleet horses and carriages, numerous and stout ships,
warehouses teeming with goods; all these, and many other objects that
fall under our view, are so many marks of national wealth and
resources. But all these spring from _labour_. Without the journeyman
and the labourer none of them could exist; without the assistance of
their hands the country would be a wilderness, hardly worth the notice
of an invader.
As it is the labour of those who toil which makes a country abound in
resources, so it is the same class of men, who must, by their arms,
secure its safety and uphold its fame. Titles and immense sums of
money have been bestowed upon numerous Naval and Military Commanders.
Without calling the justice of these in question, we may assert that
the victories were obtained by _you_ and your fathers and brothers and
sons, in co-operation with those Commanders, who, with _your_ aid,
have done great and wonderful things; but who, without that aid, would
have been as impotent as children at the breast.
With this correct idea of your own worth in your minds, with what
indignation must you hear yourselves called the Populace, the Rabble,
the Mob, the Swinish Multitude; and with what greater indignation, if
possible, must you hear the projects of those cool and cruel and
insolent men, who, now that you have been, without any fault of yours,
brought into a state of misery, propose to narrow the limit of parish
relief, to prevent you from marrying in the days of your youth, or to
thrust you out to seek your bread in foreign lands, never more to
behold your parents or friends? But suppress your indignation, until
we return to this topic, after we have considered the _cause_ of your
present misery, and the measures which have produced that cause.
The times in which we live are full of peril. The nation, as described
by the very creatures of Government, is fast advancing to that period
when an important change must take place. It is the lot of mankind
that some shall labour with their limbs and others with their minds;
and, on all occasions, more especially on an occasion like the
present, it is the duty of the latter to come to the assistance of the
former. We are all equally interested in the peace and happiness of
our common country. It is of the utmost importance that, in the
seeking to obtain these objects, our endeavours should be uniform, and
tend all to the same point. Such an uniformity cannot exist without
an uniformity of sentiment as to public matters, and to produce this
latter uniformity amongst you is the object of this address.
As to the cause of our present miseries, it is the enormous amount of
the taxes which the Government compels us to pay for the support of
its army, its placemen, its pensioners, etc., and for the payment of
the interest of its debt. That this is the _real_ cause has been a
thousand times proved; and it is now so acknowledged by the creatures
of the Government themselves. Two hundred and five of the
Correspondents of the Board of Agriculture ascribe the ruin of the
country to taxation. Numerous writers, formerly the friends of the
Pitt system, now declare that taxation has been the cause of our
distress. Indeed, when we compare our present state to the state of
the country previous to the wars against France, we must see that our
present misery is owing to no other cause. The taxes then annually
raised amounted to about fifteen millions: they amounted last year to
seventy millions. The nation was then happy; it is now miserable.
The writers and speakers who labour in the cause of corruption, have
taken great pains to make the labouring classes believe that _they_
are _not taxed_; that the taxes which are paid by the landlords,
farmers, and tradesmen, do not affect you, the journeymen and
labourers; and that the tax-makers have been very lenient towards
you. But, I hope that you see to the bottom of these things now. You
must be sensible that if all your employers were totally ruined in one
day, you would be wholly without employment and without bread; and, of
course, in whatever degree your employers are deprived of their means,
they must withhold means from you. In America the most awkward common
labourer receives five shillings a day, while provisions are cheaper
in that country than in this. Here, a carter, boarded in the house,
receives about seven pounds a year; in America, he receives about
thirty pounds a year. What is it that makes this difference? Why, in
America the whole of the taxes do not amount to more than about ten
shillings a head upon the whole of the population; while in England
they amount to nearly six pounds a head! _There_, a journeyman or
labourer may support his family well, and save from thirty to sixty
pounds a year: _here_, he amongst you is a lucky man, who can provide
his family with food and with decent clothes to cover them, without
any hope of possessing a penny in the days of sickness or of old age.
_There_, the Chief Magistrate receives six thousand pounds a year;
_here_, the civil list surpasses a million of pounds in amount, and as
much is allowed to each of the Princesses in one year, as the chief
magistrate of America receives in two years, though that country is
nearly equal to this in population.
A Mr. Preston, a lawyer of great eminence, and a great praiser of
Pitt, has just published a pamphlet, in which is this remark: 'It
should always be remembered, that the eighteen pounds a year paid to
any placeman or pensioner, withdraws from the public the means of
giving active employment to one individual as the head of a family;
thus depriving five persons of the means of sustenance from the fruits
of honest industry and active labour, and rendering them paupers.'
Thus this supporter of Pitt acknowledges the great truth that the
taxes are the cause of a people's poverty and misery and degradation.
We did not stand in need of this acknowledgment; the fact has been
clearly proved before; but it is good for us to see the friends and
admirers of Pitt brought to make this confession.
It has been attempted to puzzle you with this sort of question: 'If
taxes be the cause of the people's misery, how comes it that they were
not so miserable before the taxes were reduced as they are now?' Here
is a fallacy which you will be careful to detect. I know that the
taxes have been reduced; that is to say, _nominally_ reduced, but not
so in fact; on the contrary, they have, in reality, been greatly
augmented. This has been done by the sleight-of-hand of paper money.
Suppose, for instance, that four years ago, I had a hundred pounds to
pay in taxes, then a hundred and thirty bushels of wheat would have
paid my share. If I have now seventy-five pounds to pay in taxes, it
will require a hundred and ninety bushels of wheat to pay my share of
taxes. Consequently, though my taxes are nominally reduced, they are,
in reality, greatly augmented. This has been done by the legerdemain
of paper money. In 1812, the pound-note was worth only thirteen
shillings in silver. It is now worth twenty shillings. Therefore, when
we now pay a pound-note to the tax-gatherer, we really pay him twenty
shillings where we before paid him thirteen shillings; and the
Landholders who lent pound-notes worth thirteen shillings each, are
now paid their interest in pounds worth twenty shillings each. And the
thing is come to what Sir Francis Burdett told the Parliament it would
come to. He told them in 1811, that if they ever attempted to pay the
interest of their debt in gold and silver, or in paper money equal in
value to gold and silver, the farmers and tradesmen must be ruined,
and the journeymen and labourers reduced to the last stage of misery.
Thus, then, it is clear that it is the weight of the taxes, under
which you are sinking, which has already pressed so many of you down
into the state of paupers, and which now threatens to deprive many of
you of your existence. We next come to consider what have been the
causes of this weight of taxes. Here we must go back a little in our
history, and you will soon see that this intolerable weight has all
proceeded from the want of a Parliamentary Reform.
In the year 1764, soon after the present king came to the throne, the
annual interest of the Debt amounted to about five millions, and the
whole of the taxes to about nine millions. But, soon after this, a war
was entered on to compel the Americans to submit to be taxed by the
Parliament, without being represented in that Parliament. The
Americans triumphed, and, after the war was over, the annual interest
of the Debt amounted to about nine millions, and the whole of the
taxes to about fifteen millions. This was our situation when the
French people began their Revolution. The French people had so long
been the slaves of a despotic government, that the friends of freedom
in England rejoiced at their emancipation. The cause of Reform, which
had never ceased to have supporters in England for a great many years,
now acquired new life, and the Reformers urged the Parliament to grant
reform, instead of going to war against the people of France. The
Reformers said: 'Give the nation reform, and you need fear no
revolution.' The Parliament, instead of listening to the Reformers,
crushed them, and went to war against the people of France; and the
consequence of these wars is, that the annual interest of the Debt now
amounts to forty-five millions, and the whole of the taxes, during
each of the last several years, to seventy millions. So that these
wars have ADDED thirty-six millions a year to the interest of the
Debt, and fifty-five millions a year to the amount of the whole of
the taxes! This is the price that we have paid for having checked (for
it is only checked) the progress of liberty in France; for having
forced upon that people the family of Bourbon, and for having enabled
another branch of that same family to restore the bloody Inquisition,
which Napoleon had put down.
Since the restoration of the Bourbons and of the old Government of
France has been, as far as possible, the grand result of the contest;
since this has been the end of all our fightings and all our past
sacrifices and present misery and degradation; let us see (for the
inquiry is now very full of interest) what sort of Government that was
which the French people had just destroyed, when our Government began
its wars against that people.
If, only twenty-eight years ago, any man in England had said that the
Government of France was one that ought to be suffered to exist, he
would have been hooted out of any company. It is notorious that that
Government was a cruel despotism; and that we and our forefathers
always called it such. This description of that Government is to be
found in all our histories, in all our Parliamentary debates, in all
our books on Government and politics. It is notorious, that the family
of Bourbon has produced the most perfidious and bloody monsters that
ever disgraced the human form. It is notorious that millions of
Frenchmen have been butchered, and burnt, and driven into exile by
their commands. It is recorded, even in the history of France, that
one of them said that the putrid carcass of a Protestant smelt sweet
to him. Even in these latter times, so late as the reign of Louis
XIV., it is notorious that hundreds of thousands of innocent people
were put to the most cruel death. In some instances, they were burnt
in their houses; in others they were shut into lower rooms, while the
incessant noise of kettle-drums over their heads, day and night, drove
them to raving madness. To enumerate all the infernal means employed
by this tyrant to torture and kill the people, would fill a volume.
Exile was the lot of those who escaped the swords, the wheels, the
axes, the gibbets, the torches of his hell-hounds. England was the
place of refuge for many of these persecuted people. The grandfather
of the present Earl of Radnor, and the father of the venerable Baron
Maseres were amongst them; and it is well known that England owes no
inconsiderable part of her manufacturing skill and industry to that
atrocious persecution. Enemies of freedom, wherever it existed, this
family of Bourbon, in the reign of Louis XIV. and XV., fitted out
expeditions for the purpose of restoring the Stuarts to the throne of
England, and thereby caused great expense and blood-shed to this
nation; and, even the Louis who was beheaded by his subjects, did, in
the most perfidious manner, make war upon England, during her war
with America. No matter what was the nature of the cause, his conduct
was perfidious; he professed peace while he was preparing for war. His
object could not be to assist freedom, because his own subjects were
slaves.
Such was the family that were ruling in France when the French
Revolution began. After it was resolved to go to war against the
people of France, all the hirelings of corruption were set to work to
gloss over the character and conduct of the old Government, and to
paint in the most horrid colours the acts of vengeance which the
people were inflicting on the numerous tyrants, civil, military, and
ecclesiastical, whom the change of things had placed at their mercy.
The people's turn was now come, and, in the days of their power, they
justly bore in mind the oppressions which they and their forefathers
had endured. The taxes imposed by the Government became at last
intolerable. It had contracted a great debt to carry on its wars. In
order to be able to pay the interest of this debt, and to support an
enormous standing army in time of peace, it laid upon the people
burdens which they could no longer endure. It fined and flogged
fathers and mothers if their children were detected in smuggling. Its
courts of justice were filled with cruel and base judges. The nobility
treated the common people like dogs; these latter were compelled to
serve as soldiers, but were excluded from all share, or chance of
honour and command, which were engrossed by the nobility.
Now, when the time came for the people to have the power in their
hands, was it surprising that the first use they made of it was to
take vengeance on their oppressors? I will not answer this question
myself. It shall be answered by Mr. Arthur Young, the present
Secretary of the Board of Agriculture. He was in France at the time,
and living upon the very spot, and having examined into the causes of
the Revolution, he wrote and published the following remarks, in his
_Travels_, vol. i. page 603:--
'It is impossible to justify the excesses of the people on
their taking up arms; they were certainly guilty of
cruelties; it is idle to deny the facts, for they have been
proved too clearly to admit of doubt. But is it really the
people to whom we are to impute the whole? Or to their
oppressors, who had kept them so long in a state of bondage?
He who chooses to be served by slaves and by ill-treated
slaves, must know that he holds both his property and his
life by a tenure far different from those who prefer the
service of well-treated freemen; and he who dines to the
music of groaning sufferers, must not, in the moment of
insurrection, complain that his sons' throats are cut. When
such evils happen, they surely are more imputable to the
tyranny of the master than to the cruelty of the servant. The
analogy holds with the French peasants. The murder of a
seigneur, or a country seat in flames, is recorded in every
newspaper; the rank of the person who suffers attracts
notice; but where do we find the registers of that seigneur's
oppressions of his peasantry, and his exactions of feudal
services from those whose children were dying around them for
want of bread? Where do we find the minutes that assigned
these starving wretches to some vile pettifogger, to be
fleeced by impositions, and mockery of justice, in the
seigneural courts? Who gives us the awards of the Intendant
and his _sub-delegues_, which took off the taxes of a man of
fashion, and laid them with accumulated weight on the poor,
who were so unfortunate as to be his neighbours? Who has
dwelt sufficiently upon explaining all the ramifications of
despotism, regal, aristocratical, and ecclesiastical,
pervading the whole mass of the people; reaching, like a
circulating fluid, the most distant capillary tubes of
poverty and wretchedness? In these cases the sufferers are
too ignoble to be known; and the mass too indiscriminate to
be pitied. But should a philosopher feel and reason thus?
Should he mistake the cause for the effect? and, giving all
his pity to the few, feel no compassion for the many, because
they suffer in his eyes not individually but by millions? The
excesses of the people cannot, I fear, be justified; it would
undoubtedly have done them credit, both as men and as
Christians, if they had possessed their new acquired power
with moderation. But let it be remembered that the populace
in no country ever use power with moderation; excess is
inherent in their aggregate constitution: and as every
Government in the world knows that violence infallibly
attends power in such hands, it is doubly bound in common
sense, and for common safety, so to conduct itself, that the
people may not find an interest in public confusions. They
will always suffer much and long, before they are effectually
roused; nothing, therefore, can kindle the flame but such
oppressions of some classes or order in society as give able
men the opportunity of seconding the general mass; discontent
will diffuse itself around; and if the Government take not
warning in time, it is alone answerable for all the burnings
and all the plunderings and all the devastation and all the
blood that follow.'
Who can deny the justice of these observations? It was the Government
alone that was justly chargeable with the excesses committed in this
early stage, and, in fact, in every other stage, of the Revolution of
France. If the Government had given way in time, none of these
excesses would have been committed. If it had listened to the
complaints, the prayers, the supplications, the cries of the
cruelly-treated and starving people; if it had changed its conduct,
reduced its expenses, it might have been safe under the protection of
the peace-officers, and might have disbanded its standing army. But it
persevered; it relied upon the bayonet, and upon its judges and
hangmen. The latter were destroyed, and the former went over to the
side of the people. Was it any wonder that the people burnt the houses
of their oppressors, and killed the owners and their families? The
country contained thousands upon thousands of men that had been ruined
by taxation, and by judgments of infamous courts of justice, 'a
mockery of justice'; and, when these ruined men saw their oppressors
at their feet, was it any wonder that they took vengeance upon them?
Was it any wonder that the son, who had seen his father and mother
flogged, because he, when a child, had smuggled a handful of salt,
should burn for an occasion to shoot through the head the ruffians who
had thus lacerated the bodies of his parents? Moses slew the insolent
Egyptian who had smitten one of his countrymen in bondage. Yet Moses
has never been called either a murderer or a cruel wretch for this
act; and the bondage of the Israelites was light as a feather compared
to the tyranny under which the people of France had groaned for ages.
Moses resisted oppression in the only way that resistance was in his
power. He knew that his countrymen had no chance of justice in any
court; he knew that petitions against his oppressors were all in vain;
and 'looking upon the burdens' of his countrymen, he resolved to begin
the only sort of resistance that was left him. Yet it was little more
than a mere insult that drew forth his anger and resistance; and, if
Moses was justified, as he clearly was, what needs there any apology
for the people of France?
It seems at first sight very strange that the Government of France
should not have 'taken warning in time.' But it had so long been in
the habit of despising the people that its mind was incapable of
entertaining any notion of danger from the oppressions heaped upon
them. It was surrounded with panders and parasites who told it nothing
but flattering falsehoods; and it saw itself supported by two hundred
and fifty thousand bayonets, which it thought irresistible; though it
found in the end that those who wielded those bayonets were not long
so base as to be induced, either by threats or promises, to butcher
their brothers and sisters and parents. And, if you ask me how it
came to pass that they did not 'take warning in time,' I answer that
they did take warning, but that, seeing that the change which was
coming would deprive them of a great part of their power and
emoluments, they resolved to resist the change, and to destroy the
country, if possible, rather than not have all its wealth and power to
themselves. The ruffian whom we read of, a little time ago, who
stabbed a young woman because she was breaking from him to take the
arm of another man whom she preferred, acted upon the principle of the
ministers, the noblesse, and the clergy of France. They could no
longer unjustly possess, therefore they would destroy. They saw that
if a just government were established; that if the people were fairly
represented in a national council; they saw that if this were to take
place, they would no longer be able to wallow in wealth at the expense
of the people; and, seeing this, they resolved to throw all into
confusion, and, if possible, to make a heap of ruins of that country
which they could no longer oppress, and the substance of which they
could no longer devour.
Talk of violence indeed! Was there anything too violent, anything too
severe to be inflicted on these men? It was they who produced
confusion; it was they who caused the massacres and guillotinings; it
was they who destroyed the kingly government; it was they who brought
the king to the block. They were answerable for all and for every
single part of the mischief, as much as Pharaoh was for the plagues in
Egypt, which history of Pharaoh seems, by the bye, to be intended as a
lesson to all future tyrants. He 'set taskmasters over the Israelites
to afflict them with burdens; and he made them build treasure cities
for him; he made them serve with rigour; he made their lives bitter
with hard bondage, in mortar and in brick, and in all manner of
service of the field; he denied them straw, and insisted upon their
making the same quantity of bricks, and because they were unable to
obey, the taskmasters called them idle and beat them.' Was it too much
to scourge and to destroy all the first-born of men who could
tolerate, assist, and uphold a tyrant like this? Yet was Pharaoh less
an oppressor than the old government of France.
Thus, then, we have a view of the former state of that country, by
wars against the people of which we have been brought into our present
state of misery. There are many of the hirelings of corruption, who
actually insist on it that we ought now to go to war again for the
restoring of all the cruel despotism which formerly existed in France.
This is what cannot be done, however. Our wars have sent back the
Bourbons; but the tithes, the seigneurs, and many other curses have
not been restored. The French people still enjoy much of the benefit
of the Revolution; and great numbers of their ancient petty tyrants
have been destroyed. So that even were things to remain as they are,
the French people have gained greatly by their Revolution. But things
cannot remain as they are. Better days are at hand.
In proceeding now to examine the remedies for your distresses, I shall
first notice some of those which foolish, or cruel and insolent men
have proposed. Seeing that the cause of your misery is the weight of
taxation, one would expect to hear of nothing but a reduction of
taxation in the way of remedy; but from the friends of corruption
never do we hear of any such remedy. To hear them, one would think
that _you_ had been the guilty cause of the misery you suffer; and
that you, and you alone, ought to be made answerable for what has
taken place. The emissaries of corruption are now continually crying
out against the weight of the Poor-rates, and they seem to regard all
that is taken in that way as a dead loss to the Government! Their
project is to deny relief to all who are able to work. But what is the
use of your being able to work, if no one will, or can, give you work?
To tell you that you must work for your bread, and, at the same time,
not to find any work for you, is full as bad as it would be to order
you to make bricks without straw. Indeed, it is rather more cruel and
insolent; for Pharaoh's taskmasters did point out to the Israelites
that they might go into the fields and get _stubble_. The _Courier_
newspaper of the 9th of October, says, 'We must thus be cruel only to
be kind.' I am persuaded that you will not understand this kindness,
while you will easily understand the cruelty. The notion of these
people seems to be that everybody that receives money out of the taxes
has a right to receive it, except you. They tremble at the fearful
amount of the Poor-rates: they say, and very truly, that those rates
have risen from two and a half to eight or ten millions since the
beginning of the wars against the people of France; they think, and
not without reason, that these rates will soon swallow up nearly all
the rent of the land. These assertions and apprehensions are perfectly
well founded; but how can _you_ help it? You have not had the
management of the affairs of the nation. It is not you who have ruined
the farmers and tradesmen. You only want food and raiment: you are
ready to work for it; but you cannot go naked and without food.
But the complaints of these persons against you are the more
unreasonable, because they say not a word against the sums paid to
sinecure placemen and pensioners. Of the five hundred and more
Correspondents of the Board of Agriculture, there are scarcely ten who
do not complain of the weight of the Poor-rates, of the immense sums
taken away from them by the poor, and many of them complain of the
idleness of the poor. But not one single man complains of the immense
sums taken away to support sinecure placemen, who do nothing for their
money, and to support pensioners, many of whom are women and children,
the wives and daughters of the nobility and other persons in high
life, and who can do nothing, and never can have done anything for
what they receive. There are of these places and pensions all sizes,
from twenty pounds to thirty thousand and nearly forty thousand pounds
a year! And surely these ought to be done away before any proposition
be made to take the parish allowance from any of you who are unable to
work, or to find work to do. There are several individual placemen,
the profits of each of which would maintain a thousand families. The
names of the ladies upon the pension list would, if printed, one under
another, fill a sheet of paper like this. And is it not, then, base
and cruel at the same time in these Agricultural correspondents to cry
out so loudly against the charge of supporting the unfortunate poor,
while they utter not a word of complaint against the sinecure places
and pensions?
The unfortunate journeymen and labourers and their families have a
right, they have a just claim, to relief from the purses of the rich.
For there can exist no riches and no resources which they by their
labour have not assisted to create. But I should be glad to know how
the sinecure placemen and lady pensioners have assisted to create
food and raiment, or the means of producing them. The labourer who is
out of work or ill, to-day, may be able to work, and set to work
to-morrow. While those placemen and pensioners never can work; or, at
least, it is clear that they never intend to do it.
You have been represented by the _Times_ newspaper, by the _Courier_,
by the _Morning Post_, by the _Morning Herald_, and others, as the
_scum_ of society. They say that you have no business at public
meetings; that you are rabble, and that you pay no taxes. These
insolent hirelings, who wallow in wealth, would not be able to put
their abuse of you in print were it not for your labour. You create
all that is an object of taxation; for even the land itself would be
good for nothing without your labour. But are you not taxed? Do you
pay no taxes? One of the correspondents of the Board of Agriculture
has said that care has been taken to lay as little tax as possible on
the articles used by you. One would wonder how a man could be found
impudent enough to put an assertion like this upon paper. But the
people of this country have so long been insulted by such men, that
the insolence of the latter knows no bounds.
The tax gatherers do not, indeed, come to you and demand money of you:
but there are few articles which you use, in the purchase of which you
do not pay a tax.
On your shoes, salt, beer, malt, hops, tea, sugar, candles, soap,
paper, coffee, spirits, glass of your windows, bricks and tiles,
tobacco: on all these, and many other articles you pay a tax, and even
on your loaf you pay a tax, because everything is taxed from which the
loaf proceeds. In several cases the tax amounts to more than one half
of what you pay for the article itself; these taxes go in part to
support sinecure placemen and pensioners; and the ruffians of the
hired press call you the scum of society, and deny that you have any
right to show your faces at any public meeting to petition for a
reform, or for the removal of any abuse whatever!
Mr. Preston, whom I quoted before, and who is a member of Parliament
and has a large estate, says upon this subject, 'Every family, even of
the poorest labourer, consisting of five persons, may be considered as
paying, in indirect taxes, at least ten pounds a year, or more than
half his wages at seven shillings a week!' And yet the insolent
hirelings call you the mob, the rabble, the scum, the swinish
multitude, and say that your voice is nothing; that you have no
business at public meetings; and that you are, and ought to be
considered as nothing in the body politic! Shall we never see the day
when these men will change their tone! Will they never cease to look
upon us [as on] brutes! I trust they will change their tone, and that
the day of the change is at no great distance!
The weight of the Poor-rate, which must increase while the present
system continues, alarms the corrupt, who plainly see that what is
paid to relieve you, they cannot have. Some of them, therefore, hint
at your early marriages as a great evil, and a clergyman named Malthus
has seriously proposed measures for checking you in this respect;
while one of the correspondents of the Board of Agriculture complains
of the increase of bastards, and proposes severe punishment on the
parents! How hard these men are to please! What would they have you
do? As some have called you the swinish multitude, would it be much
wonder if they were to propose to serve you as families of young pigs
are served? Or if they were to bring forward the measure of Pharaoh,
who ordered the midwives to kill all the male children of the
Israelites?
But, if you can restrain your indignation at these insolent notions
and schemes, with what feelings must you look upon the condition of
your country, where the increase of the people is now looked upon as a
curse! Thus, however, has it always been, in all countries where taxes
have produced excessive misery. Our countryman, Mr. Gibbon, in his
History of the _Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire_, has the
following passage: 'The horrid practice of murdering their new-born
infants was become every day more frequent in the provinces. It was
the effect of _distress_, and the distress was principally occasioned
by the _intolerable burden of taxes_, and by the vexatious as well as
cruel prosecutions of the officers of the revenue against their
insolvent debtors. The less opulent or less industrious part of
mankind, instead of rejoicing at an increase of family, deemed it an
act of paternal tenderness to release the children from the impending
miseries of a life which they themselves were unable to support.'
But that which took place under the base Emperor Constantine will not
take place in England. You will not murder your new-born infants, nor
will you, to please the corrupt and insolent, debar yourselves from
enjoyments to which you are invited by the very first of Nature's
laws. It is, however, a disgrace to the country that men should be
found in it capable of putting ideas so insolent upon paper. So, then,
a young man arm-in-arm with a rosy-cheeked girl must be a spectacle of
evil omen! What! and do they imagine that you are thus to be
extinguished, because some of you are now (without any fault of yours)
unable to find work? As far as you were wanted to labour, to fight, or
to pay taxes, you were welcome, and they boasted of your numbers; but
now that your country has been brought into a state of misery, these
corrupt and insolent men are busied with schemes for getting rid of
you. Just as if you had not as good a right to live and to love and to
marry as they have! They do not propose, far from it, to check the
breeding of sinecure placemen and pensioners, who are supported in
part by the taxes which you help to pay. They say not a word about the
whole families who are upon the pension list. In many cases there are
sums granted in trust for _the children_ of such a lord or such a
lady. And while labourers and journeymen who have large families too,
are actually paying taxes for the support of these lords' and ladies'
children, these cruel and insolent men propose that they shall have no
relief, and that their having children ought to be checked! To such a
subject no words can do justice. You will feel as you ought to feel;
and to the effect of your feelings I leave these cruel and insolent
men.
There is one more scheme to notice, which, though rather less against
nature is not less hateful and insolent; namely, to encourage you to
emigrate to foreign countries. This scheme is distinctly proposed to
the Government by one of the correspondents of the Board of
Agriculture. What he means by encouragement must be to send away by
force, or by paying for the passage; for a man who has money stands in
no need of relief. But, I trust, that not a man of you will move, let
the _encouragement_ be what it may. It is impossible for many to go,
though the prospect be ever so fair. We must stand by our country, and
it is base not to stand by her, as long as there is a chance of seeing
her what she ought to be. But the proposition is, nevertheless, base
and insolent This man did not propose to encourage the sinecure
placemen and pensioners to emigrate; yet, surely, you who help to
maintain them by the taxes which you pay, have as good a right to
remain in the country as they have! You have fathers and mothers and
sisters and brothers and children and friends as well as they; but
this base projector recommends that you may be encouraged to leave
your relations and friends for ever; while he would have the sinecure
placemen and pensioners remain quietly where they are!
No: you will not leave your country. If you have suffered much and
long, you have the greater right to remain in the hope of seeing
better days. And I beseech you not to look upon yourselves as the
_scum_; but, on the contrary, to be well persuaded that a great deal
will depend upon your exertions; and therefore, I now proceed to point
out to you what appears to me to be the line of conduct which
journeymen and labourers ought to pursue in order to obtain effectual
relief, and to assist in promoting tranquillity and restoring the
happiness of the country.
We have seen that the cause of our miseries is the burden of taxes
occasioned by wars, by standing armies, by sinecures, by pensions,
etc. It would be endless and useless to enumerate all the different
heads or sums of expenditure. The remedy is what we have now to look
to, and that remedy consists wholly and solely of such a reform in the
Commons' or People's House of Parliament, as shall give to every payer
of direct taxes a vote at elections, and as shall cause the Members to
be elected annually.
In a late _Register_ I have pointed out how easily, how peaceably, how
fairly, such a Parliament might be chosen. I am aware that it may, and
not without justice, be thought wrong to deprive those of the right of
voting who pay indirect taxes. Direct taxes are those which are
directly paid by any person into the hands of the tax-gatherers, as
the assessed rates and taxes. Indirect taxes are those which are paid
indirectly through the maker or seller of goods, as the tax on soap or
candles or salt or malt. And, as no man ought to be taxed without his
consent, there has always been a difficulty upon this head. There has
been no question about the _right_ of every man who is free to
exercise his will, who has a settled place in society, and who pays a
tax of any sort, to vote for Members of Parliament. The difficulty is
in taking the votes by any other means than by the Rate-book; for if
there be no list of tax-payers in the hands of any person, mere menial
servants, vagrants, pickpockets, and scamps of all sorts might not
only come to the poll, but they might poll in several parishes or
places, on one and the same day. A corrupt rich man might employ
scores of persons of this description, and in this way would the
purpose of reform be completely defeated. In America, where one branch
of the Congress is elected for four years and the other for two years,
they have still adhered to the principle of direct taxation, and in
some of the States they have made it necessary for a voter to be worth
one hundred pounds. Yet they have, in that country, duties on goods,
custom duties, and excise duties also; and, of course, there are many
persons who really pay taxes, and who, nevertheless, are not permitted
to vote. The people do not complain of this. They know that the number
of votes is so great that no corruption can take place, and they have
no desire to see livery servants, vagrants, and pickpockets take part
in their elections. Nevertheless it would be very easy for a reformed
Parliament, when once it had taken root, to make a just arrangement of
this matter. The most likely method would be to take off the indirect
taxes, and to put a small direct tax upon every master of a house,
however low his situation in life.
But this and all other good things, must be done by a reformed
Parliament. We must have that first, or we shall have nothing good;
and any man who would beforehand take up your time with the detail of
what a reformed Parliament ought to do in this respect, or with
respect to any changes in the form of government, can have no other
object than that of defeating the cause of reform; and, indeed, the
very act must show, that to raise obstacles is his wish.
Such men, now that they find you justly irritated, would persuade you
that, because things have been perverted from their true ends, there
is nothing good in our constitution and laws. For what, then, did
Hampden die in the field, and Sydney on the scaffold? And has it been
discovered at last that England has always been an enslaved country
from top to toe? The Americans, who are a very wise people, and who
love liberty with all their hearts, and who take care to enjoy it too,
took special care not to part with any of the great principles and
laws which they derived from their forefathers. They took special care
to speak with reverence of, and to preserve Magna Charta, the Bill of
Rights, the Habeas Corpus, and not only all the body of the Common Law
of England, but most of the rules of our courts, and all our form of
jurisprudence. Indeed it is the greatest glory of England that she has
thus supplied with sound principles of freedom those immense regions
which will be peopled perhaps by hundreds of millions.
I know of no enemy of reform and of the happiness of the country so
great as that man who would persuade you that we possess nothing good,
and that all must be torn to pieces. There is no principle, no
precedent, no regulations (except as to mere matter of detail),
favourable to freedom, which is not to be found in the Laws of
England or in the example of our ancestors. Therefore I say we may ask
for, and we want nothing new. We have great constitutional laws and
principles to which we are immovably attached. We want great
alteration, but we want nothing new. Alteration, modification, to suit
the times and circumstances; but the great principles ought to be and
must, be the same, or else confusion will follow.
It was the misfortune of the French people that they had no great and
settled principles to refer to in their laws or history. They sallied
forth and inflicted vengeance on their oppressors; but, for want of
settled principles to which to refer they fell into confusion; they
massacred each other; they next flew to a military chief to protect
them even against themselves; and the result has been what we too well
know. Let us therefore congratulate ourselves that we have great
constitutional principles and laws, to which we can refer, and to
which we are attached.
That reform will come I know, if the people do their duty; and all
that we have to guard against is confusion, which cannot come if
reform take place in time. I have before observed to you that when the
friends of corruption in France saw that they could not prevent a
change, they bent their endeavours to produce confusion, in which they
fully succeeded. They employed numbers of unprincipled men to go about
the country proposing all sorts of mad schemes. They produced first a
confusion in men's minds, and next a civil war between provinces,
towns, villages and families. The tyrant Robespierre, who was exceeded
in cruelty only by some of the Bourbons, was proved to have been in
league with the open enemies of France. He butchered all the real
friends of freedom whom he could lay his hands on, except Paine, whom
he shut up in a dungeon till he was reduced to a skeleton. This
monster was at last put to death himself; and his horrid end ought to
be a warning to any man who may wish to walk in the same path. But I
am, for my part, in little fear of the influence of such men. They
cannot cajole you as Robespierre cajoled the people of Paris. It is,
nevertheless, necessary for you to be on your guard against them, and
when you hear a man talking big and hectoring about projects which go
further than a real and radical reform of the Parliament, be you well
assured that that man would be a second Robespierre if he could, and
that he would make use of you and sacrifice the life of the very last
man of you; that he would ride upon the shoulders of some through
rivers of the blood of others, for the purpose of gratifying his own
selfish and base and insolent ambition.
In order effectually to avoid the rock of confusion, we should keep
steadily in our eye not only what we wish to be done but what can be
done now. We know that such a reform as would send up a Parliament,
chosen by all payers of direct taxes, is not only just and
reasonable, but easy of execution. I am therefore for accomplishing
that object first; and I am not at all afraid that a set of men who
would really hold the purse of the people, and who had been just
chosen freely by the people, would very soon do everything that the
warmest friend of freedom could wish to see done.
While, however, you are upon your guard against false friends, you
should neglect no opportunity of doing all that is within your power
to give support to the cause of reform. Petition is the channel for
your sentiments, and there is no village so small that its petition
would not have some weight. You ought to attend at every public
meeting within your reach. You ought to read to and to assist, each
other in coming at a competent knowledge of all public matters. Above
all things, you ought to be unanimous in your object, and not suffer
yourselves to be divided.
The subject of religion has nothing to do with this great question of
reform. A reformed Parliament would soon do away with all religious
distinctions and disabilities. In their eyes, a Catholic and a
Protestant would both appear in the same light.
The _Courier_, the _Times_, and other emissaries of corruption, are
constantly endeavouring to direct your wrath against bakers, brewers,
butchers, and other persons who deal in the necessaries of life. But,
I trust that you are not to be stimulated to such a species of
violence. These tradesmen are as much in distress as you. They cannot
help their malt and hops and beer and bread and meat being too dear
for you to purchase. They all sell as cheap as they can, without being
absolutely ruined. The beer you drink is more than half _tax_, and
when the tax has been paid by the seller he must have payment back
again from you who drink, or he must be ruined. The baker has numerous
taxes to pay, and so has the butcher, and so has the miller and the
farmer. Besides, all men are eager to sell, and, if they could sell
cheaper they certainly would, because that would be the sure way of
getting more custom. It is the weight of the taxes which presses us
all to the earth, except those who receive their incomes out of those
taxes. Therefore I exhort you most earnestly not to be induced to lay
violent hands on those who really suffer as much as yourselves.
On the subject of lowering wages too, you ought to consider that your
employers cannot give to you that which they have not. At present,
corn is high in price, but that high price is no benefit to the
farmer, because it has risen from the badness of the crop, which Mr.
Hunt foretold at the Common Hall, and for the foretelling of which he
was so much abused by the hirelings of the press, who, almost up to
this very moment, have been boasting and thanking God for the goodness
of the crop! The farmer whose corn is half destroyed, gains nothing by
selling the remaining half for double the price at which he would
have sold the whole. If I grow 10 quarters of wheat, and if I save it
all and sell it for two pounds a quarter, I receive as much money as
if I had sold the one-half of it for four pounds a quarter. And I am
better off in the former case, because I want wheat for seed, and
because I want some to consume myself. These matters I recommend to
your serious consideration; because it being unjust to fall upon your
employers to force them to give that which they have not to give, your
conduct in such cases must tend to weaken the great cause in which we
ought all now to be engaged, namely the removal of our burdens through
the means of a reformed Parliament. It is the interest of vile men of
all descriptions to set one part of the people against the other part;
and therefore it becomes you to be constantly on your guard against
their allurements.
When journeymen find their wages reduced, they should take time to
reflect on the real cause, before they fly on their employers, who are
in many cases in as great or greater distress than themselves. How
many of those employers have of late gone to jail for debt and left
helpless families behind them! The employer's trade falls off. His
goods are reduced in price. His stock loses the half of its value. He
owes money. He is ruined; and how can he continue to pay high wages?
The cause of his ruin is the weight of the taxes, which presses so
heavily on us all, that we lose the power of purchasing goods. But it
is certain that a great many, a very large portion of the farmers,
tradesmen, and manufacturers, have, by their supineness and want of
public spirit, contributed towards the bringing of this ruin upon
themselves and upon you. They have _skulked_ from their public duty.
They have kept aloof from, or opposed all measures for a redress of
grievances; and indeed, they still skulk, though ruin and destruction
stare them in the face. Why do they not now come forward and explain
to you the real cause of the reduction of your wages? Why do they not
put themselves at your head in petitioning for redress? This would
secure their property much better than the calling in of troops, which
can never afford them more than a short and precarious security. In
the days of their prosperity they were amply warned of what has now
come to pass; and the far greater part of them abused and calumniated
those who gave them the warning. Even if they would now act the part
of men worthy of being relieved, the relief to us all would speedily
follow. If they will not; if they will still skulk, they will merit
all the miseries which they are destined to suffer.
Instead of coming forward to apply for a reduction of those taxes
which are pressing them as well as you to the earth, what are they
doing? Why, they are applying to the Government to add to their
receipts by passing Corn Bills, by preventing foreign wool from being
imported; and many other silly schemes. Instead of asking for a
reduction of taxes they are asking for the means of paying taxes!
Instead of asking for the abolition of sinecure places and pensions,
they pray to be enabled to continue to pay the amount of those places
and pensions! They know very well that the salaries of the judges and
of many other persons were greatly raised, some years ago, on the
ground of the rise in the price of labour and provisions, why then do
they not ask to have those salaries reduced, now that labour is
reduced? Why do they not apply to the case of the judges and others
the arguments which they apply to you? They can talk boldly enough to
you; but they are too great cowards to talk to the Government, even in
the way of petition! Far more honourable is it to be a ragged pauper
than to be numbered among such men.
These people call themselves the _respectable_ part of the nation.
They are, as they pretend, the virtuous part of the people, because
they are quiet; as if virtue consisted in immobility! There is a
canting Scotchman in London, who publishes a paper called the
'_Champion_' who is everlastingly harping upon the virtues of the
'fireside,' and who inculcates the duty of quiet submission. Might we
ask this Champion of the teapot and milk-jug whether Magna Charta and
the Bill of Rights were won by the fireside? Whether the tyrants of
the House of Stuart and of Bourbon were hurled down by fireside
virtues? Whether the Americans gained their independence, and have
preserved their freedom, by sitting by the fireside? O, no! these were
all achieved by action, and amidst bustle and noise. Quiet indeed! Why
in this quality a log, or a stone, far surpasses even the pupils of
this Champion of quietness; and the chairs round his fireside exceed
those who sit in them. But in order to put these quiet, fireside,
respectable people to the test, let us ask them if they approve of
drunkenness, breaches of the peace, black eyes, bloody noses, fraud,
bribery, corruption, perjury, and subornation of perjury; and if they
say no, let us ask them whether these are not going on all over the
country at every general election. If they answer yes, as they must
unless they be guilty of wilful falsehood, will they then be so good
as to tell us how they reconcile their inactivity with sentiments of
virtue? Some men, in all former ages, have been held in esteem for
their wisdom, their genius, their skill, their valour, their devotion
to country, etc., but never until this age, was _quietness_ deemed a
quality to be extolled. It would be no difficult matter to show that
the quiet, fireside gentry are the most callous and cruel, and,
therefore, the most wicked part of the nation. Amongst them it is that
you find all the peculators, all the blood-suckers of various degrees,
all the borough-voters and their offspring, all the selfish and
unfeeling wretches, who, rather than risk the disturbing of their
ease for one single month, rather than go a mile to hold up their hand
at a public meeting, would see half the people perish with hunger and
cold. The humanity, which is continually on their lips, is all
fiction. They weep over the tale of woe in a novel; but round their
'decent fireside,' never was compassion felt for a real sufferer, or
indignation at the acts of a powerful tyrant.
The object of the efforts of such writers is clearly enough seen. Keep
all _quiet_! Do not rouse! Keep still! Keep down! Let those who
perish, perish in silence! It will, however, be out of the power of
these quacks, with all their laudanum, to allay the blood which is now
boiling in the veins of the people of this kingdom; who, if they are
doomed to perish, are at any rate resolved not to perish in silence.
The writer whom I have mentioned above, says that he, of course, does
not count 'the lower classes, who, under the pressure of need or under
the influence of ignorant prejudice, may blindly and weakly rush upon
certain and prompt punishment; but that the security of every decent
fireside, every respectable father's best hopes for his children,
still connect themselves with the Government.' And by Government he
clearly means all the mass as it now stands. There is nobody so
callous and so insolent as your sentimental quacks and their patients.
How these 'decent fireside' people would stare, if some morning they
were to come down and find them occupied by uninvited visitors! I
hope they never will. I hope that things will never come to this pass:
but if one thing more than any other tends to produce so sad an
effect, it is the cool insolence with which such men as this writer
treats the most numerous and most suffering classes of the people.
Long as this Address already is, I cannot conclude without some
observations on the 'Charity Subscriptions' at the London Tavern. The
object of this subscription professes to be to afford relief to the
distressed labourers, etc. About forty thousand pounds have been
subscribed, and there is no probability of its going much further.
There is an absurdity on the face of the scheme; for, as all parishes
are compelled by law to afford relief to every person in distress, it
is very clear that, as far as money is given by these people to
relieve the poor, there will be so much saved in the parish rates. But
the folly of the thing is not what I wish you most to attend to.
Several of the subscribers to this fund receive each of them more than
ten thousand pounds and some more than thirty thousand pounds each,
out of those taxes which you help to pay, and which emoluments not a
man of them proposes to give up. The clergy appear very forward in
this subscription. An Archbishop and a Bishop assisted at the forming
of the scheme. Now then, observe that there has been given out of the
taxes, for several years past, one hundred thousand pounds a year,
for what, think you? Why for the relief of the poor clergy! I have no
account at hand later than that delivered last year, and there I find
this sum!--for the poor clergy! The rich clergy do not pay this sum;
but it comes out of those taxes, part, and a large part of which you
pay on your beer, malt, salt, shoes, etc. I daresay that the 'decent
firesides' of these poor clergy still connect themselves with the
Government. Amongst all our misery we have had to support the
intolerable disgrace of being an object of the charity of a Bourbon
Prince, while we are paying for supporting that family upon the throne
of France. Well! But is this all? We are taxed, at the very same
moment, for the support of the French Emigrants! And you shall see to
what amount. Nay, not only French, but Dutch and others, as appears
from the forementioned account laid before Parliament last year. The
sum, paid out of the taxes, in one year, for the relief of suffering
French Clergy and Laity, St. Domingo Sufferers, Dutch Emigrants,
Corsican Emigrants, was one hundred and eighty-seven thousand seven
hundred and fifty pounds; yes, one hundred and eighty-seven thousand
seven hundred and fifty pounds paid to this set in one year out of
those taxes of which you pay so large a share, while you are insulted
with a subscription to relieve you, and while there are projectors who
have the audacity to recommend schemes for preventing you from
marrying while young, and to induce you to emigrate from your
country! I'll venture my life that the 'decent firesides' of all this
swarm of French clergy and laity, and Dutch, and Corsicans, and St.
Domingo sufferers 'still connect themselves closely with the
Government'; and I will also venture my life that you do not stand in
need of one more word to warm every drop of blood remaining in your
bodies! As to the money subscribed by regiments of soldiers, whose pay
arises from taxes in part paid by you, though it is a most shocking
spectacle to behold, I do not think so much of it. The soldiers are
your fathers, brothers, and sons. But if they were all to give their
whole pay, and if they amount to one hundred and fifty thousand men,
it would not amount to one-half of what is now paid in Poor-rates, and
of course would not add half a pound of bread to every pound which the
unhappy paupers now receive. All the expenses of the Army and Ordnance
amount to an enormous sum--to sixteen or eighteen millions; but the
pay of one hundred and fifty thousand men, at a shilling a day each,
amounts to no more than two million seven hundred and twelve thousand
five hundred pounds. So that, supposing them all to receive a shilling
a day each, the soldiers receive only about a third part of the sum
now paid annually in Poor-rates.
I have no room, nor have I any desire, to appeal to your passions upon
this occasion. I have laid before you, with all the clearness I am
master of, the causes of our misery, the measures which have led to
those causes, and I have pointed out what appears to me to be the only
remedy--namely a reform of the Commons', or People's House of
Parliament. I exhort you to proceed in a peaceable and lawful manner,
but at the same time to proceed with zeal and resolution in the
attainment of this object. If the skulkers will not join you, if the
'decent fireside' gentry still keep aloof, proceed by yourselves. Any
man can draw up a petition, and any man can carry it up to London,
with instructions to deliver it into trusty hands, to be presented
whenever the House shall meet. Some further information will be given
as to this matter in a future Number. In the meanwhile, I remain your
Friend, WM. COBBETT.