36 ULTRA RADICALISM. 



or temper, or self-renunciation, requisite in adjusting the differences 

 between themselves and their oppressors. 



Nobody would delight more than the Radical, in the native supe- 

 riority of such men as Samuel Downing, cabinet-maker ! brought 

 before the public by Junius Redivivus in the Examiner. Nobody 

 would more entirely admit the propriety of the writer's suggestion, 

 that Samuel Downing should be elevated promptly above handicraft, 

 and enabled to devote his powers to the instruction of his fellows. 

 But the Radical's lip would curl into a smile at the inference of the 

 exaggerated Junius, that the said Samuel Downing, in virtue of his 

 capacity of thinking correctly and feeling deeply, and being thereby, of 

 course, better qualified for public service than some legislators, ought 

 to be forthwith elevated to legislative office ! Much more would the 

 Radical dissent from the current inferences of ultra radicalism, that 

 the numbers of wise and temperate politicians, amongst the workies, 

 bear a controlling proportion to the slightly informed and intem- 

 perate. 



The Radical must be astounded at the readiness with which ultra 

 radicals swerve, in practice, from their favourite tenet, the all- 

 involving importance of knowledge. He is deeply impressed with the 

 truth of this tenet, and has probably caught some portion of his en- 

 thusiasm in its maintenance from the ultras. It must be a marvel to 

 him then, how the chief pretenders to this political principle habi- 

 tually exert themselves to counteract it, by appealing., on questions re- 

 quiring knowledge, ere they can be entertained, to the judgments of men 

 still in a general state of ignorance and prejudice. This astonishment 

 must be all the greater, because the ultra Radicals are wont to dwell 

 upon the tendency of knowledge to obviate danger from popular excite- 

 ment ; and thus readily admit the present existence of an evil they 

 continually provoke. 



The Radical again is forcibly struck by the glaring inconsistency of 

 the ultras in the tone they adopt respecting the misdemeanours of the 

 masses. He cannot understand why the ultras advocate extension of 

 knowledge to improve the people, if the people, as at present, are 

 never, on any occasion of conflict with the authorities, so much to 

 blame as their opponents. If the people are now wise and cool 

 enough to be canvassed indiscriminately upon questions of politics ; 

 and, when assembled in numbers, are only tempted to outrage by the 

 brutal conduct of the force employed against them, the inference is un- 

 avoidable, that no security to the state can be expected from popular 

 refinement ; and that the only parties in need of education for that 

 purpose are the military, the police, and their employers. 



The Radical cannot discern much difference, in point of crimina- 

 lity, between urging men on to deeds of brutal outrage, and defending 

 or palliating such deeds, and accusing those who would apply suffi- 

 cient force to check them of inhumanity and tyranny. It seems to 

 him then somewhat over-scrupulous and squeamish in certain poli- 

 tical writers of great ability, and no slight moral merit, to take 

 offence at being termed destructive, incendiary politicians. As on no 

 one occasion of civil tumult, and conflict, and destruction, these 

 writers can find ought to be so much lamented as the sufferings of the 



