ItJO Present Slate of Society, [Tun. 



aged amongst the poor. To the lower class, it ensures protection in their 

 labour, safety in their home and family, and the perfect liberty of rising, 

 by industry or fortune, from the subordinate stations in which fate has 

 placed them ; and, in addition to this, allows them an unchallenged right 

 of claiming the privileges enjoyed by those to whose level they may 

 have attained. 



Such is the state of society which it is the tendency of our Constitution 

 to create and to preserve ; and such a state, we have no hesitation in 

 affirming, holds out the greatest assurance of substantial and enduring 

 prosperity to its possessors. There has been no society, in the history 

 of the world, which has stood the test of time, and especially of prospe- 

 rity, except such as have been based on these principles ; and we know 

 that by no other can society be held together, without reverting to its 

 original elements. We could give abundant instances of the truth of 

 this assertion ; but it is unnecessary to look beyond our own position in 

 the world, and its causes. We owe nothing to circumstances. We are 

 but a speck compared with the rest of Europe. To what then can we 

 point as the cause of our superiority in wealth in civilization in com- 

 merce in power except we point to our Constitution, and impress 

 upon our own minds, and those of our children, that, whilst the rest of 

 Europe were embarrassed by the ever-changing circumstances of an 

 unsettled and imperfect state of society, the Englishman was free to 

 turn his whole thought and industry to the attainment of the means of 

 happiness ? His position in society, and the privileges belonging to it, 

 were alike defined and secured by settled principles. His industry was 

 nis own ; his wealth protected by those from whom it was derived : and 

 his advancement on the road to honour or to comfort unimpeded by 

 violence or change. There was no fear behind him no chasm before ; 

 but, as he progressed from point to point, the sphere of his privileges 

 and power widened as the substance to be protected increased. To this 

 security of body and mind is to be attributed the integrity of principle 

 and firmness of purpose, which has ever been the distinguishing feature 

 of our character as a people, and the source of all our pre-eminence in 

 the scale of nations. 



It is not our purpose to enter into any discussion upon the compara- 

 tive merits of the state of society, above described, and that which a 

 certain order of politicians have so long and ardently laboured to substi- 

 tute in its place. We are not enemies to the just influence of the people 

 in the affairs of a State ; and, on the contrary, deem such influence to be 

 justly and inalienably vested in them by the British Constitution : but 

 God forbid that, by such an admission, we should appear to accord with 

 one sentence of the trash which has of late issued from the lips of the 

 mob-orators and agitators ; or circulated, in more enduring form, amongst 

 the peasantry of this land ! Our meaning is as different from theirs, 

 as light from darkness as their own fair seeming from the deep and 

 deadly meaning, which dwells in their hearts and thoughts, like a spirit 

 of evil, exulting in the strength by which its deeds of ruin are felt, whilst 

 the hand that wrought them is veiled from the eye of its victims ! The 

 people we repeat are entitled to an influence a great influence, in 

 the legislature of every country ; but the rabble whom such men seek 

 to exalt upon the ruins of order and civilization do not, and ought not, 

 to possess one claim to such an influence ; for, in allowing this, we 



