THE GROUND WORK OF A NATION. (HE ancient Germans,' says Carlyle, 'had no scruple about public execu- nature; him that had perpetrated one of these they laid hold of, nothing doubting; bore him, after judgment, to the deepest convenient peat-bog; plunged him in there, drove an oaken frame down over him, solemnly in the name of gods and men; "There, prince of scoundrels! lie there, and be our partnership with thee dissolved henceforth. It "will be better for us, we imagine! So should the late-dying Whigs be buried. Trample their graves hard, that no vampire Baseness arise to plague us; and let their names 'stand aye accursed in the calendar.' Ay, better even the Tories. At least it is no longer our basest who bear rule, though they too are intimate personal friends' of Prince-Presidents and the like. But no one will mistake them for friends of Freedom. That is some gain. We have Force instead of Treachery. A short sad reign to them till Disraeli perfect his revenge and lead them to the doom of tyrants. What that Disraeli might do, had he strength to kick out his party and consult the nation. How instead of chuckling to 'leave the resuscitated League to settle their quarrels with the Amalgamated Engineers,' he might settle that quarrel on ground some way ahead of the sham-free-traders, and, taking up the poor man's question, arouse a power to keep down Manchester for good and all. What Disraeli might do! Ay, what even that old ferocious Tory party might do with any man of genius really at their head, to shape their bigoted half-truths to great national ends. But they are gone mad, thank God; and will not trouble us for long. Manchester must have its turn. King Practical, the soulless, narrow-brained, figure-befooled atheist. Every dog his day. And dark indeed will be the Cobdenish dog days. No horn-lantern of communism or of competitive socialism will light us out of that. What shall come next? After the no-government of the voluntaries and the egotistical fools of laissezfaire, the times may ripen for a national government. Not till then, it is to be feared. While men sleep, our poor planet travels through its appointed phases. But how to provide for that time, (for it might be well to provide for it) when Whigs, Tories, and Radicals,-Cowards, Tyrants, and Anarchists,-having done their worst, the People will be compelled to take the reins, or We doubt if it has ever occurred to any of those who sport the style and title of parliamentary reformers' to consider what a NATION really is, for what its scattered members should be gathered together, like sheep into one fold. O, for the shearing: say the financialists. Not only for that, you exactest calculators. Nor is it only for mere counting, for greater convenience of trade. If that could be all, Ireland might belong to France, and John Bright be English Viceroy of Napoleon Soulouque. Nay, if no winged aspirations lift us out of these conveniences, we must inevitably come under a Napoleon of our own. Some of our statesmen would almost persuade us that English earth is vile enough for even such a fashion. God forbid! Let England itself forbid it. And the sole chance that we have of avoiding the most infamous of despotisms lies in our stepping out of the anarchy which is fast preparing us for infamy. Woe to us if we have no preparation on the other side, if there are none to lead us out of anarchy: so that we may become one, a nation, a power, a living force. This is not only a republican question. It is a question of English life: which should interest all men with honest English hearts in their bosoms, whether they base their actions upon republican justice, or rejoice in loyalty to the shadow of a 'constitution;' whether they believe with us that the faith of Milton should be to us as an informing soul, as the fashioning spirit of a glorious form, or with our opponents, that the strong hand of monarchical power should bind us into unity. This question of making England one, an united nation, held together by something more potent, and more sacred, than the poor wyths of commercial correspondence, this is a question of no party, but the business, we repeat, of every honest Englishman;-of every honest Englishwoman too. Surely from the young men of the Conservative faction, those who have hearts under their white waistcoats,-from the more liberal-souled of the liberals, too undisciplined now to be so much as a faction,-from those who have honestly sought free-trade, not merely for their own class, and who are not selfishly afraid of carrying it out to its legitimate conclusions,—from that large quiet party of literary men who dare to think justly, but whose sedentary habits have made them forget that thought should engender action, that the closet should not be the close of life, from the many of the true hearted who feel strongly and whom a pardonable reaction has dipped, yet not too deeply, in the mire of 'communism,' -from the higher-natured of our artists and students,-and from the more cultivated of our clear-thinking workmen, who have been the foremost as a class to approach first principles,-surely from all these scattered sections of society might be formed the nucleus of a national party-the ground work of a nation. -- Once united their course would be plain before them. Their first step would be decided by the very fact of their union,—that first step the promise of their whole march. They would neither lose their wits in the hazes of political intrigue, nor their self-respect, the respect of others ever going with it, by continually jumping after illusory compromises. They would ask themselves simply-what is a nation? Is it a forced combination of slaves under one master or many masters. Is it an attempted marriage of two classes-privileged and helot? Is it a mere horde of men bound by certain common interests, with outlying corners wherein outlaws may hide, and whence they may continually infest the community? Or is a nation one of the families of mankind-a family of the same stock, of like parentage and character and tendency, a group planted by God in one place, not merely for momentary convenience, but for constant mutual service, and for growth in order that their perfected strength may serve the world-may serve the righteousness of human progress-may serve, may worship God? So the first step of a national party can not be other than the assertion of universal suffrage. The demand of the franchise, not on the ground of any absurd crotchets of rateability or length of residence, but on the broad natural ground of manhood, of a place in the nation (whether rateable or not and however changeable the dwelling place), the broad ground of not merely the individual's right, but of the nation's need, of the service of every one of its members. A national party will not hold a man excused from defending the soil from invasion until he shall claim to be rated, or until he shall have lived some arbitrary time in one particular district. Neither will the nationalist deem more lightly of tyranny and misgovernment at home. A national party will require that every man shall serve his country: not only for his own sake, but for the nation's. A national party will excuse no man from his duty. Their first object, the meaning of their first step-the demand for universal suffrage, will be to evoke the now dormant spirit of patriotism, to infuse a soul into the now chaotic mass. So we may be led out of the confusion in which at present our little public spirit loses its way, the labyrinth in which our energies, our hopes, our fortunes, are wandering, none can tell us whither. Of what avail are the Whiggisms that beset us with their vociferous pretences of ability at guidance. Of what avail their peddling schemes, from the last Russell dodge to the magnificence of the financial reformers who calculate on leaving out only a million of the nation? What we want is to become a strong and united people, that we may laugh the Cossacks to scorn, that we may stand forth under heaven as a mighty, healthful giant, true to ourselves, to the noble memories of our race, and able to take the part of Right whether on our own hearth, or abroad. The part of Right! O even on our own hearth and for the poorest right of physical life. In London alone, as the Times (of March 23d 1852) confesses, '100,000 persons are every day without food, save it be the precarious produce of a passing job or a crime.' It is stated too in the Registrar-general's annual report for 1849 that nearly one human being died weekly in this wealthy metropolis from actual starvation.' In 1851, 28 adults died from starvation and 252 infants from want of milk or food. What help shall come from the parliamentary gladiators, who can agree only in squabbling, to stop all chance of government. Who, while such things remain unremedied, can prescribe at best a new election, with various wind-instruments, and two millions sterling to provide for the stultification of the electors? What help from those whose bells are jingling in our legislative halls, when even the Times is compelled to cry out, in such unwonted phrase as this: 'It is high time that public opinion should be brought to bear upon this 'subject. THE GREAT AND SOLEMN ACTS BY WHICH A NATION'S POLITICAL EXISTENCE IS PERPETUATED SHOULD BE REGARDED AS SACRED BY A RELIGIOUS 'PEOPLE, AS OBJECTS OF RESPECT BY A MORAL PEOPLE, AND AS GRAVE AND 'SERIOUS BUSINESS BY A REFLECTING PEOPLE.' And we talk of accepting some extension of the franchise as 'a step in the right direction,' at most of being satisfied with the exclusion of a million. Is it not time that public opinion should be brought to bear,' that a national party should arise, to put the question upon a higher footing, to put it in a form worthy its sacredness and its serious import, in such a form as may befit men who claim to be either religious, moral, or reflecting? The Chartists asked no more than right; but they asked in the name of a class, and lost power by standing as a class, though their object indeed was national. We must have a national party to obtain the national object. Let it be so. Let the few men most quickly impressed with the imminence of the matter speak out at once, fearlessly, plainly, not caring though in their first small and scarcely noticed conference neither M.P.s nor other unlucky notorieties assist them. So much the better. Let the few stand forth, the straight-forward uncompromising nucleus of a national party. Not many days shall pass before all that is honest and wise in the country will gather round them as to some beacon on an ancient hill; and from that height shall march a power to make our England yet a nation,-God-fearing, brave, and worthy of the martyr-dust of old. And let all other baseness, whether of trick or cowardice, be buried in the grave of Whiggery. March over it to nationhood! Trample the grave hard, that Vileness may never arise again to curse us or our seed. A LABOUR OF HERCULES. AUGIAS, King of Bullochs, employed Hercules to clean out his stable. A filthy place it was, with no less than six hundred and fifty beasts in it: some dirtier than the rest, but none decent. Hercules, being young and sanguinely foolish, thought perhaps the beasts themselves might clean it: so he went round to one and another, asking them to lend him a hand. Much did not come of that Hercules grew wiser. He must needs himself undertake the task. How to do it? Some old pedlars passing by, with brooms and pails to sell, recommended him an assortment of cheap brooms and pails. He could sweep out a stall a day; King Augias was very patient, quite moderate in his requirements; and the stable would be neatness itself in time. How Hercules damned them for a set of cunning fools, and with great strides passed out of hearing of their impertinence. One moment's counsel of his own courage, and then the divine Workman turned a river through the stable, and in one day did what had bothered the bulloch-reformers for years. The river's name was Universal Suffrage. O Hercules! J. Watson, 3, Queen's Head Passage, Paternoster Row, London. No. 17, April 22. ARE THE SOCIALISTS REPUBLICANS? REPUBLICANISM is not republican unless it is social as well as democratic. But, on the other hand, Socialism may be republican or not. What is a republican ? We abandon the vague definition-one who objects to a king. One who objects to monarchy would be right enough: but then monarchy must bear its widest sense-the rule of a portion, whether one, a few, or a many, as opposed to the rule of the whole. A republican is one who objects to any fraction of the nation ruling; who would have the whole nation its own ruler. Republicanism is government by all for all. By all: every adult member of the State helping to interpret and to set in action the laws of life. For all for the protection, the aidance, and the assurance of the utmost possible progress, of every member of the state. The supreme republican law is the progress of Humanity. Humanity is all of human life. The conditions of this law, the terms without which its full development is impossible, are liberty for all, equality for all, fraternity for all. Liberty: perfect freedom for each to develope his nature, to grow to the utmost of his capacity. Equality: the necessary corollary and only safeguard of liberty; protection of each from each, that the growth of one may not impede the growth of another; equal provision for all, so that none may want the elements of growth, moral, intellectual, or physical. Fraternity: the law of duty, the only bond of association; the duty of God's children one to another; the law which makes of the many human individuals one whole Humanity. We accord the name of Republican only to him who admits this as the basis of his life and doctrine. We are only logical in denying the name of Republican to whosoever denies this basis: for every departure from it is a step into monarchism,—that is to say, the usurpation of a fraction, a treason against the wholeness, the oneness of human society; and monarchism, however disguised, is the opposite of republicanism. Now, socialism is not always republican. And when not, certainly does not become any more republican because the socialist possessor may happen to call himself a republican,—having, it may be, a very earnest hatred of every kind of monarchism except that which may be hidden-even from himself-under his particular formula. Socialism is not always republican. To take an instance. The socialism which would make the State (and let it be the government of even a majority, and however great that majority) the director and dictator of labour, with only this change from our present system-that the workman would be under, instead of |