Читать книгу The Story of a Working Man's Life - Francis Mason - Страница 13

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"PARLIAMENTARY REFORM" were among the first words I recollect hearing from visitors at my father's house. It seemed to hold the place in the mind of every speaker that the gospel ought to hold—the grand panacea for all our woes. Whatever grievance a man might have, whether it were poverty, improvidence, or oppression, parliamentary reform was confidently expected to afford the desired relief.

England has the best government in Europe, and yet it is a government of the few over the many by means of class privileges, bribery and corruption. The amount of bribery at elections was formerly quite incredible. At a contested election in the city of York, in 1807, which I well recollect, and in which my father took an active part, the cost to the candidates, according to published statements, amounted in the aggregate to L226,000, or more than a million of dollars. More money, therefore, was spent in bribery at a single election, than it had cost the United States to pay the salaries of all their presidents from their formation up to that date.

The pounds sterling necessary to get into Parliament, unless in exceptional cases, effectually closes the doors against all but rich men, whatever may be the franchise. The franchise has been much bettered in the sixty years that have elapsed since the York election, but the system of bribery remains unchanged. John Marshman, C. S. S., the founder of the "Friend of India," son of Dr. Marshman, a gentleman of rare talents, was a candidate for Parliament on two different occasions, but he had to retire from the contest in both instances, according to the "Friend of India," because he could not, and would not, pay like his opponents.

Americans cannot appreciate the difficulties that beset all attempts to obtain reform in England. The government has been in the crucible ever since the days of Magna Charta, and progress has been made; but it is like the slow changes of geological epochs. Every proposition for reform is met with mountains of determined resistance; every improvement with an attempt to crush it in the embryo.

Still, the agitation of the people is a power, and the only power that has ever gained them anything. Every concession of the government to them has been made like the first, through fear. The editor of the "Calcutta Review" well remarks: "It is an Englishman's privilege to grumble. And a glorious and dear-bought privilege it is. What would Old England now have been if her sons had not availed themselves of the privilege of grumbling. If those stern old barons at Runnymede had been content to bear in silence the deception and exaction of one of the basest monarchs that ever disgraced the English Crown, the very foundations of English freedom would not have been laid. In the splendid temple that England has since reared to liberty, not a single stone has been fixed from that day to this, but it has been dug out from the quarry and squared and shaped in the midst of grumbling and unuttered or open discontent. Not a single political privilege have the people obtained, but they have won it by the sheer force of grumbling. And woe to the rulers if not listening to the distant thunder they made no effort to avert the storm, but drove the people from words to blows. Oh, for some poet to sing in burning words the power of grumbling! It wrung from reluctant monarchs the house of representation, and when a crafty but short-sighted king refused to listen to its warning, he lost his head. In our own days it has won for the people a reform bill, and now John Bright, that prince of grumblers, is giving us fresh evidence of its power in the influence over the masses which its vigorous and unsparing exercise has given him. And long, long may it be ere the day comes when in any country on the face of the earth Englishmen shall cease to grumble."

From my earliest boyhood, our house was the resort of the radical party in York; and William the Conqueror said in his day, that York was a "nest of sedition," and destroyed the city on that account. When we removed to Hull, the same society gathered around us, for wherever my father was there was always a reform meeting. He was a representative man of the reform class, and was always ready for a discussion, or a speech, or a poem, at the least possible notice.

While in Hull he published a long political poem, which was printed at the expense of the reformers and circulated as a tract. I recollect only the motto, which was: "When the righteous are in authority the people rejoice, but when the wicked bear rule the people mourn."

There was a debating society in Hull composed of men a little above the rank of journeymen mechanics, and my father being known as a good speaker, was soon elected an honorary member, and had a free ticket for himself and family. I never failed to attend, and enjoyed the meeting vastly more than I did those I had to attend on the Sabbath.

In subsequent years, after I went to America, and my father took up his abode in Leeds, the home of my mother, public reform meetings became very common both in the town and neighborhood, in which my father took a prominent part, and became a very popular speaker. In a letter to my son Albert, of New York, I gave him some notices of his grandfather, in which I wrote: "I think it was the reporter to the Times, who in reporting a mass meeting in the suburbs of Leeds, said: 'I have for the last twenty years been a reporter in the House of Commons, and have often heard the eloquence of Pitt, Fox, and Sheridan, with tears of admiration glistening in my eyes, but little did I think, on a rude, uncultivated Yorkshire common, that I should have been struck with wonder and astonishment at the superior mind of an unassuming shoemaker, whose name I afterwards learned was 'Mason.'"

"I have just turned up, while on the subject, an old English newspaper, giving an account of the 'Otley Reform Meeting,' of which I see your grandfather was chairman. The editor says: 'The place of meeting was a field about a quarter of a mile from the church, in which a substantial hustings was erected. The number of flags was thirty-three.

"'Mr. Mason, of Leeds, was called to the chair, a little after one o'clock; and he opened the business in a short and judicious address. The reformers, he said, had always manifested the most peaceable disposition, and conducted themselves with perfect good order; and by a continuance in that course they were sure ultimately to prevail in obtaining all they wanted. They did not wish for a visionary liberty, or a licentious freedom, but for that only which the constitution of the country granted. They were oppressed by a more ponderous load of taxation than had ever been borne by any nation, and it was natural that they should meet to consult, in a legal and constitutional manner, on the best means of freeing themselves from it. It had been said that they excited the worst passions of their countrymen, but that they denied; they appealed only to their reasoning powers, and demanded only what the constitution granted. What they wanted was a full, free, and equal representation; and if they proceeded in the same manner as they had begun, not the gates of hell, nor the demons of corruption, could prevail against them.'

"Your grandfather's words have been verified. After forty years more of meetings and speech-making, the workingmen have nearly—not quite all yet—got what they asked and battled for in those days. Your grandfather was a wise man. I see that in this meeting he opposed the passage of a rebellious resolution that the body of the meeting went for.

"'In putting the motion, Mr. Mason stated that he had no doubt of the justice of the principle on which the resolution was founded, but should hesitate in recommending a course so strong as the resolution proposed.'

"At the close of the meeting, the editor states: 'A Cap of Liberty was presented to the chairman by Mary Nicholson, and was hailed with loud acclamations by the meeting.

"'The thanks of the meeting were then voted to the gentlemen who had lent the field and the hustings, to all public men who supported the cause of reform, and to the chairman.

"'Mr. Mason returned thanks in a short speech, and the meeting was dissolved at half-past three o'clock.'

"The crowds your grandfather presided over have now got the franchise, and were he still living they would only be too glad to make him their representative to Parliament.

"Thus, you see, your great grandfather believed in religion, your grandfather in politics, and your father believes in both. 'Seek first the kingdom of heaven,' and secondly, go in for the kingdoms of this world, to see they are managed aright. Politics I regard as second in importance only to religion. Politics is carrying out religion in the second command of the law, performing our duties to our fellow men, while the first pertains to our duties to God."