friends, do give a moment's serious thought to what I am going to say. You all have consciences, and I fear your consciences, at least those of many of you, are ill at ease. Amidst your earthly privations you do not feel a good hope of a happy futurity. Some of you perhaps doubt whether there will be another world at all. See now what a dreadful alternative is before you. If there is not another world, all you have to look to is the poor comfortless existence which you have here. If there is another world, the case is ten times worse; at least to those who are so living that they cannot hope for a reward hereafter. What you want most of all is that confident looking forward to happiness hereafter, which shall enable you to bear your present ills patiently, and in so doing you would deprive them of more than half their bit terness. But I will not say more on this subject. Only in enumerating your present evils, I could not omit that which is the greatest of all. However, I intend to confine myself principally to physical grievances. Now what is the cause of your physical grievances-your poverty, and bad condition? It is this. In some cases your wages are low and fluctuating, scarcely enough to live on when you are employed, and sometimes failing you altogether. This arises from there being too many of you competitors for the same employment. In other cases your wages are quite sufficient for a decent maintenance, and, if properly managed, enough to keep yourselves and your families in respectability. But you have got into bad habits of spending all you get in eating and drinking and other extravagances. So that when evil times come you have nothing to fall back on. Where this is so, your bad condition and squalid appearance is clearly your own fault; in the former case it arises from circumstances over which you yourselves have little or no control. I hope, however, that it may be possible to find remedies for all these evils. So then the evils of your condition are general poverty, bad clothes, bad houses, sometimes insufficient food, want of instruction, improvidence, drunkenness, and let me add (for I must do so) restlessness of mind, discontent, an evil conscience. Consider well, are not these the principal evils from which you are suffering? I will proceed to consider first the remedies which have already been proposed for your grievances, and then I shall lay before you my own view of the case. The remedies proposed by those persons to whom you are most accustomed to listen are the following six points: 1. Universal Suffrage. 2. No Property Qualification. 3. Annual Parliaments. 4. Equal Representation. Now I must say at once that to propose these six points as any remedy for the evils under which you are confessedly labouring, is the most impudent cheat I ever heard of. It is not my intention in this address to enter into any discussion respecting the Six Points of the Charter. They may be very good or very bad, or some of them may be good and some bad. All I say is, that they cannot by possibility have any good effect in themselves to improve your physical condition. How can the "Payment of Members of Parliament" improve the wages of workmen? How can "No Property Qualification" give you better houses or coats or shoes? How can "Annual Parliaments and Universal Suffrage,"-constant electioneering and voting make you more provident and sober? How can "Vote by Ballot cause you to be honester and better, and therefore happier men? It seems clear to me that these things are in no way calculated to help you in your difficulties, or improve your condition; and those persons who tell you they will do so are only cheating you. Suppose, however, for a moment, that the Charter, if you could get it, would lead to the improvement of your condition. Still is it not evident that it would be much the best way to go at once for what will really do you good of itself. You are only losing your time in trying to get the Charter. If your condition is not to be mended before you get the Charter, I am afraid you will have to wait long enough for it; for the large majority of the nation is against the Charter. You will never get the Charter without a civil war, and most likely not then. Look at the great agitator O'Connell, who wasted so many years, and broke down a powerful intellect, in following the ignis fatuus of Repeal, and left his country as wretched and poverty-stricken as he found it. What might not that man have done if he had devoted his vast energies to his country's real good. My advice to you is this, to try and get what will really do you good at once, and not listen to Chartist orators and speechifiers, whose sole object is to make themselves notorious, and get influence among you for their own vain glory. And there is another set of men who are just as bad, perhaps worse, because they ought to know better. I mean those who call themselves Radical Reformers, as Hume, Cobden, and Muntz. These men are very busy just now agitating for "Household Suffrage and Triennial Parliaments.' Have nothing to do with these half-and-half gentlemen. Better be Chartists at once. The object of these political radicals is to enlarge the suffrage just so much as to get office for themselves. Of all politicians Hume and his set are those who have done, and will do, least for the working classes. It is only a few weeks since Mr. Hume voted against even hearing the case of the poor frameworkknitters. His principle is to do nothing for the working-classes, but let them take their chance, and starve or not as they may. At any rate it is quite evident that "Triennial Parliaments" and "Household Suffrage" will never give the working classes what they really want-that is more food, better clothes, better houses, education, provident and sober habits, and self-respect. I come back then to what I said before. Don't be led aside to direct your minds to political privileges which you will probably never get, and if you did get them, would do you no good whatever; but petition for what you really want to make your condition easier. The six points which I propose are these: 1. A GENERAL PROVIDENT FUND. 4. A GOOD HEALTH-OF-TOWNS BILL. 6. REVISION OF TAXATION. I have set these six points down in order, and will now explain what I mean by each of them. 1. A General Provident Fund. One of the greatest evils under which the working classes are suffering is fluctuation in trade-first a brisk demand, then in a few months a glut; high wages one week, and the next perhaps none at all. It is a very harassing and perplexing state of things for the workman, but there is no possibility of preventing it. You might as well attempt to control the winds and the waves. But as the sailor provides against a storm, so as to weather it, though he cannot prevent it, so should we provide against times of bad trade. At present when a workman is reduced to want, he has no alternative but to go to the Board of Guardians and I am sorry to say that Boards of Guardians and Relieving Officers do not always treat poor workmen so kindly and considerately as they ought to do. To be sure they are spending money levied from people who are often very ill able to pay it; and therefore it is their duty to be as economical as they can. But then they might at the same time be civil and considerate. However, it is a very unpleasant thing for an honest *See the debate of March 29, 1848, in which Sir H. Halford, Mr. Packe, Mr. Newdegate, and other county members strongly urged that inquiry should be made into the bad condition of the framework-knitters, and something done for them, and Mr. Hume made a long speech, and voted against the motion, which was thrown out, working man to have to go before a Board of Guardians; and the way in which I would save him from this degradation (for a degradation it is) is this-I would have a general plan, sanctioned by the Legislature, by which, in good times, a small portion of each man's wages should be laid by to form a provident fund; then, in bad times, he should receive out of this fund a weekly allowance, which would be his own-earned by his own labour-just as much as if it were a dividend from the Savings' Bank. This plan is already adopted in respect to the wages of sailors, and has been found to answer perfectly, and I do not see why it should not be tried with manufacturers, or indeed any other class of workmen-but manufacturers more than any, because their employment is more precarious than that of others. Some manufacturers have good wages, some have bad. Those who have good wages will have to lay by a certain portion out of them, as they ought though there were no law to make them do it. In the case of those who have bad wages-only just enough to live upon-their masters must pay the deposit. I would have the law compulsory in all cases. 2. Cultivation of Waste Lands. Why there should be any such thing as waste lands in England, Ireland, or Scotland, when there are hundreds and thousands of unemployed labourers, I never, for the life of me, could see any good reason. There may be legal difficulties, but surely, these might and ought to have been removed long ago, for the sake of the great advantages of giving healthy occupation and wholesome food to the multitudes of families who might be profitably employed on lands at present entirely useless. What is the cause of the overcrowding of our great cities, the undue competition for employment, the close packing of houses? What but the continual influx of labourers from the country, who do not find sufficient employment in agriculture? How greatly must we expect to see this evil increased, when the railroad labourers, amounting at least to 250,000, have done their work, as they will have done before very long! What I propose is that the Government should take the waste lands into their own hands. Landlords have no right to object to such a measure on the score of their own interest, as they have already themselves set aside the claim of the Clergy to the tenth portion of new enclosures. However, let fair compensation be made for any vested interest, and then let the Government take all waste land into their own hands as a great public estate, employing as many hands on them as can be profitably employed, and letting them at a fair rent. There are said to be six million acres of good land lying waste in Ireland alone, which would maintain a million families. What a relief would it be if the swarm of Irish who pauperize Liverpool and Manchester, and other great towns, were employed honestly and profitably in their own country. I have no doubt whatever that by the cultivation of waste lands not only would a great relief be given to the labour market, but that the Government might get a good rent into the bargain, which would go to ease the taxes. 3. Colonization. Colonization is a very different thing from emigration. The present system of emigration is for poor families to go out independently, and land themselves in our colonies, orin some foreign country, with the chance of finding employment, and the risk of finding none. I have no wish to see the poor shovelled out of the country to shift for themselves. Colonization is quite different: it is the ancient method which was in vogue principally among the Greeks about two thousand five hundred years ago, and which ought now to be revived. When a country got too full of people, it was resolved to send out a colony. Persons of all classes joined it, not poor labourers and artisans only, but men of rank, intelligence, and capital, all agreed to go out together and form a settlement. Settlements so formed uniformly flourished, and in many cases became more powerful states than the country from which they went out. We have abundant historical proof of the success of colonization. An illustration of the nature of the plan may be drawn from an army. An army does not consist of private soldiers only, but is a body of men well officered, and organized, and provisioned, and furnished with every necessary: these men go out as a compact and united body to invade an enemy's country-as for instance, the army under the Duke of Wellington, which went to Spain when it was occupied by the French. Well-instead of going to fight with enemies, our army of colonizers would go and cultivate the country its object would be to cut down forests, occupy lands, subdue wastes. It should be well officered, and organized, and provisioned ;-only, instead of swords, give them spades; instead of bayonets, pitchforks; instead of cannon, ploughs. An army sent out in this way would soon be able to adopt Napoleon's practice, that is, to quarter itself on the enemy's country-and that without committing a single act of plunder. By making good use of their weapons of peace they might in a year's time, or two years at the utmost, be able to live in plenty; and so far from being a burden to their mother-country, would be a great help in taking her manufactures. I want to see Government set on foot some plan of this sort, worthy of a great nation like ours. 4. Health of Towns. This is another matter which must be carried through, as it has already been taken up by Government. There are some |