drink carelessly without dread of the morrow, while you toil anxiously, unresistingly, madly, that you may eat and drink on some morrow that never comes. 'But is there no choice except between this sty-provisioning and fighting?" Possibly not. Nay! are you sure that even the trough may be filled so

peaceably?

Shut up in this England, it may seem at first sight that we have no concern with the quarrels of Europe; but is England really so self-sufficient?

Do not her cheese-and-peace-mongers deal with Europe? Has not even our Trade (that one thing needful, and so much better than fighting) some dependence upon the peace and liberty of Europe?

What if the Peoples of Europe should accept the bread of slavery, will safethroned Despotism open continental ports to England? Is there room yet for a bargain of that sort? Enslave the nations; we shall not interfere only give us the order for the iron of their chains.'

But the Peoples will not be bribed with the peace of slavery. The European War now beginning must end either in the triumph of the Peoples or in their subjugation-only until their strength be renewed.

Let the cowards and the materialists preach as they may, the war between Right and Wrong, between Freedom and Despotism, the battle for ideas, for principles, will and must continue.

AND, SOONER OR LATER, WE MUST BE DRAWN INTO IT.

Whether the Peoples shall look after the bread and cheese' or turn to fighting: this is no longer a possible form of the question. They must fight. The only question for true, the only practical men to consider is-How to make that fight as brief as possible. This for the highest sake, for the sake of real Peace, the Peace which can only be established upon Justice, upon the overthrow of Wrong. This, too, even for sake of the 'bread and cheese,' which shall be hardly earned in precarious times of war.

Friend! if you could

But you told us to look after the bread and cheese. persuade these troubled spirits to give up fighting and settle down into tamest sleek oxenship- -I will not say to you, as was said of old, 'If these could hold their peace, the very stones would rise'; but do you too look after such a trade-paradise. What must come after?

If men could so abjure all the heroism of life, could so ease themselves of that divine impulse to active hatred against Injustice-which is the logical consequence of the energetic love, or worship, of Truth,—if men could so stoop their souls to merest sordidness, it is not even the shabby heaven of Trade to which they would attain. Think of France taught 'peace' by Louis the Crafty, and so becoming fit slave for Louis the Base! Think of Russia, Cossack-trampled! And judge what Europe would be with some Czar or Jesuit for God, and such things as Louis 'Bonaparte' for his Vicegerents.

Would we stoop our England to this abomination?

Would we sell our birthright of honour, as eldest-born of Freedom, for such a filthy mess of Devil's Pottage as this?

What must we do, else?

First disclaim the infamous jargon of 'non-intervention' which is uttered in

our name, that atheistic doctrine which is either cowardly or most vilely selfish; and let our voices again be heard for the Right, our pity again be active for the Oppressed, our hope again soar, like a presage of victory, above the heads of those who fight for human freedom. So perhaps through our sympathy with others we may learn some higher sense of duty toward ourselves.

For we have indeed cared but too much for the 'bread and cheese,' and forgotten the higher matters.

But still persists our phlegmatic friend. Can you with a well-regulated mind, as an honest man and a christian, a peaceful citizen, and perhaps the father of a family, can you deliberately propose that we shall go to war?'

My dear Sir! I propose nothing of the sort. I propose only that we shall be honest, and do our duty to our neighbours, whether that lead to war or not. Peradventure the good resolution may obviate the necessity for war.

Had we been in earnest when French Ruffians were weighing anchor at Marseilles, or when Russia threatened to put his foot upon Hungary, we might have saved Europe then, and by this time have had peace assured.

That too without a blow. Neither Odillon-Barrot nor his master had fired one shot into our blockading squadron; nor would the Czar have dared us to bombard St. Petersburg.

If we must fight now, O you short-sighted prophets of 'Peace,' it is because we were afraid then.

Afraid and we are Englishmen.

O, bring home our manhood! What fear, and we the sons of them who sank the Invincible Armada? What fear, and we the heirs of them who gave an active sympathy, not mere after-dinner words, to the Waldenses? What fear, and we the successors of the men of Agincourt, of Trafalgar, and Waterloo ?

Let us learn again what patriotism is; what valour; what honour; what heroic worth; what championship of the Right; what service to God and Man! And so act. Come what may.

Come what may: Jesuit or Cossack. The issue is our own.

'Where be your powers? Show now your mended faiths
'And instantly return with me again,

To push destruction and perpetual shame
'Out of the weak door of our fainting land!

This England never did, nor never shall,
'Lic at the proud foot of a conqueror
'But when it first did help to wound itself.
'Now these her princes are come home again,

'Come the three corners of the world in arms,

'And we shall shock them. Nought shall make us rue
'If England to itself do rest but true'.

W. J. LINTON.

J. Watson, 3, Queen's Head Passage, Paternoster Row, London. No. 4, January 22.

WORKING-MEN'S COMBINATIONS.

STRIKES AND CO-OPERATIVE ASSOCIATIONS.

TRIKES are to be considered from two points of view: their morality and their policy.

Morality. Workmen have a clear right to combine, whether for less work, more wages, or other honest purposes. They have a right also to adopt any measures in themselves moral, to make their combination effective. Free association, by honest means to achieve an honest end, is a natural right: and consequently moral, whatever law may forbid it. But coercion is not a right. Men have no right to compel others to associate. To do so is to violate individual freedom. Policy. At the best strikes are endeavours at an unequal combat: like trying to make ten combined shillings a match for a single sovereign. The naked workman, with at least one hand tied, challenges his armed master. No strike can be more than temporarily successful. No series of successful strikes can establish a sound state of labour. A strike of 200 men may seriously injure the master; but that is not the end. The question is between their means and his. They have saved £2000; and he has £2000. It is a simple calculation to find which must be starved out first-the combined workmen with £10 each or the one master with £2000. As 10 is to 2000, so is the chance of success to the policy of the strike; albeit sometimes a master may give way, and wait for his revenge. Nor is this all the odds against a workman. The 200 workmen will not easily find work elsewhere: the master's capital is almost certain of employment. At most he suffers only a fine, while the men risk life. And outside this foulmatched duel stands the Law, the master's creature, to maintain the unequal conditions, to interfere if the workman overstep by one inch the ill-defined legal bounds within which alone the master consents to fight him. Whatever principles may be involved in the issue, though to hang back should prove the workman wanting in commonest manly courage and sense of duty, still these odds remain the same, still ever the same is the impolicy of this method of contention.

CO-OPERATIVE ASSOCIATIONS are open to the same objection. They are but a less openly offensive way of warring against the Capitalist. Let the labour of 200 men represent a capital of £2000, yielding in full work, say ten per cent a week, or twenty shillings a week for each shareholder. The rival Capitalist is worth precisely the same. When work is slack the association falls short of very necessaries, while the capitalist has only to discharge so many men. Let that particular branch of trade be ruined, and, while the capitalist takes his money to a new venture, the combined workmen are scattered, and bave each to learn a new occupation. And again, as if these difficulties are not enough, the Law takes part with the capitalist; hindering at every turn the most legitimate partnerships of members. Doubtless when a cooperative association can succeed,

it is an immense advantage to the workman; and here and there one may succeed under some specially favourable circumstances. But it is folly to suppose that with the tremendous odds against them they can ever be made to beat the combination of capitalists and transform the condition of society.

To contend or compete with the masters on any likelihood of general success, the workmen must have capital. They can never acquire sufficient capital under the present system. So, like a horse in a mill, they go round in a vicious circle. The only hope lies in the State supplying such capital as may be needed to redeem labour from the profit-mongers. And the State will only do this when the State shall mean the whole People, when political power shall be in the hands of all.

FOREIGN AFFAIRS.

WAR WITH EUROPE: ALLIANCE WITH AMERICA.

LORY to God and to Napoleon! So chaunt the clergy at Notre-Dame, in thanksgiving for seven millions of Frenchmen having voted themselves slaves, coward slaves of One too vile even for the Times. Jesuitism backs the Imperial Scoundrel; Pope Pius, recollecting how he too received his crown from the blood-stained hands' of a ruffian soldiery, consistently sanctifies the bloody success of the Man whom God had sought.' Austria is jubilant; Piedmont crouches; Narvaez returns to Spain. The Czar and the Pope are masters of the situation. The out-posts of the Russian army (the French detachment) are within two hours of our coast; already the cloven-foot is set in Ireland; we are ordered to turn out the Refugees. Another trick and Despotism plays his King of French Hearts against England. What game is ours?

a

We have excellent cards. First there is a Whig Ministry, which has just washed its hands of Palmerston, for having too soon or too openly applauded the Decembrist. A Ministry that never did one service to European or English liberty; that perhaps now affects to break with Palmerston in order to have in opposition a leader on whom it can rely. Can any honest stand be made against Despotism by a Government of which the best that its apologists can say is that 'it discreditably exists for want of a better.'

Then we have the alternative of a Tory, or rather (Barabbas drawn mild) a

It is now formal denunciation of the 'godless colleges:' the Irish ordered by Napoleon's Bishop of Rome, to procure the withdrawal of youth.' Religious liberty, Mr. Bright! bTimes Leader of January 3. The very feeblest description of our present Ministerial efficiency would be apt to move a smile at the expence of the sixteen noblemen and gentlemen that constitute the government.'

'Conservative' Ministry: Aberdeen and the gang which owns blood-relationship with every Ruffian on the Continent, from Nicholas and King Bomba to Szcla and Louis the Last. Nice fellows for English Liberty!

Have we not also a 'Liberal' Party (lucus a non)? the Manchester Men, who would liberally truckle to the Devil for another thirty pieces of silver. If we could but have Cobden and Company as a War Ministry to take care of English honour, with Joseph Sturge for Commander-in-Chief, and Elihu Burritt for Lord-High-Admiral-since our sailors prefer American service.

And our army. What do you think of the following samples of the material, furnished by an 'Old Light Division Officer' to the Times of Dec. 29, 1851 ?

"The army musket is a clumsy inefficient weapon; it is impossible, even when it is fixed and fired from a stand, to calculate with any accuracy either on distance or direction. Confessedly it is not efficient beyond 150 yards The allowance of ball cartridge to each infantry soldier is only 30 rounds for a whole year's practice. It is the old story of our navy over again, with their short-range guns and neglected practice, which caused those untoward events at the commencement of the last American war; and when we see other European nations taking great pains to perfect their infantry arms and skill in the use of them, it is impossible to avoid the apprehension that in the event of a collision

.

'It has been calculated that of every 300 shots fired in action, not more than 33 take effect. This against large compact bodies of men. But when the object is to pick off individuals, even the Caffres laugh at us.'

Is this the way to cope with the practised troops of France? In the French army are 14,000 sharp-shooters, every one of whom can pick off his man at a distance of 600 yards. And what numbers shall we have to meet the invaders? Ireland uncomfortable, the Caffres refusing to be put down, and Russia backing an overwhelming revolt in India: what regiments can we order home?

The English People must fight then for their own liberties. What, when you will not even trust them with the franchise, will you arm them 'pro aris et focis': for their altars and their hearths? The comfortless hearths of ill-paid Labour, and the altars of God knows what-some hideous Hudson-worship that does not need a country. The English People must fight. But at how fearful a disadvantage, united only by a common danger, untrained, undisciplined, unused to arms. Yet they must fight, even in despair, even though kindling the heroic-fire of patriotism (so long extinct) from the ashes of the pillaged land. They will fight. And when arms are in their hands, let them not lay them down till they have rid their country not only of the invaders but of the home-tyrants also; till upon the funeral-pyre of Tyranny they have lit such a beacon-flame in England as shall warm the hearts of patriots in the farthest European corner!

But what sort of struggle is this coming upon us; and what, in such little time as may intervene before the battle is at our doors, ought we to do in preparation for the worst? If we are to measure strength with Europe, would we do it unprepared? Or shall we be reckless whither we may be led, whether in the evil day we buy our peaceful share of bondage by base complicity with Wrong, or spend our blood and treasure to purchase a new Treaty of Vienna