England must contrive to manage its living interests,and quit its dead ones and their methods,or else depart from its place in this world.Surely England is called as Nation ever was,to summon out its kings ,and set them to that high work!--Huge iganic England,nigh choked under the exuviae of a thousand years,and blindly sprawling amid chartisms,ballot-boxes,prevenient graces,and bishops'nightmares,must,as the preliminary and commencement of organization,learn to breathe again,--get "lungs"for herself again,as we defined it.That is imperative upon her:she too will die,otherwise,and cough her last upon the streets some day;--how can she continue living?To enfranchise whatsoever of Wisdom is born in England,and set that to the sacred task of coercing and amending what of Folly is born in England:Heaven's blessing is purchasable by that;by that,only Heaven's curse is purchasable.The reform contemplated,my liberal friends perceive,is a truly radical one;ballot-box ever went so deep into the roots:a radical,most painful,slow and difficult,but most indispensable reform of reforms!
How short and feeble an approximation to these high ulterior results,the best Reform of Downing Street,presided over by the fittest Statesman one can imagine to exist at present,would be,is too apparent to me.A long time yet till we get our living interests put under due administration,till we get our dead interests handsomely dismissed.A long time yet till,by extensive change of habit and ways of thinking and acting,we get living "lungs"for ourselves!Nevertheless,by Reform of Downing Street,we do begin to breathe:we do start in the way towards that and all high results.is there visible to me any other way.Blessed egh were the way once entered on;could we,in our evil days,but see the le enterprise begun,and fairly in progress!
What the "New Downing Street"can grow to,and will and must if England is to have a Downing Street beyond a few years longer,it is far from me,in my remote watch-tower,to say with precision.
A Downing Street inhabited by the gifted of the intellects of England;directing all its energies upon the real and living interests of England,and silently but incessantly,in the alembics of the place,burning up the extinct imaginary interests of England,that we may see God's sky a little plainer overhead,and have all of us a great accession of "heroic wisdom"to dispose of:such a Downing Street--to draw the plan of it,will require architects;many successive architects and builders will be needed there.Let editors,and remote unprofessional persons,interfere too much!--Change in the present edifice,however,radical change,all men can discern to be inevitable;and even,if there shall worse swiftly follow,to be imminent.Outlines of the future edifice paint themselves against the sky (to men that still have a sky,and are above the miserable London fogs of the hour);le elements of new State Architecture,foreshadows of a new Downing Street for the New Era that is come.These with pious hope all men can see;and it is good that all men,with whatever faculty they have,were earnestly looking thitherward;--trying to get above the fogs,that they might look thitherward!
Among practical men the idea prevails that Government can do hing but "keep the peace."They say all higher tasks are unsafe for it,impossible for it,--and in fine necessary for it or for us.On this footing a very feeble Downing Street might serve the turn!--I am well aware that Government,for a long time past,has taken in hand other public task,and has professed to have other,but that of keeping the peace.This public task,and the private one of ascertaining whether Dick or Jack was to do it,have amply filled the capabilities of Government for several generations .Hard tasks both,it would appear.
In accomplishing the first,for example,have heaven-born Chancellors of the Exchequer had to shear us very bare;and to leave an overplus of Debt,or of fleeces shorn before they are grown,justly esteemed among the wonders of the world?a first-rate keeping of the peace,this,we begin to surmise!At least it seems strange to us.
For we,and the overwhelming majority of all our acquaintances,in this Parish and Nation and the adjacent Parishes and Nations,are profoundly conscious to ourselves of being by nature peaceable persons;following our necessary industries;without wish,interest or faintest intention to cut the skin of any mortal,to break feloniously into his industrial premises,or do any injustice to him at all.Because indeed,independent of Government,there is a thing called conscience,and we dare .
So that it can but appear to us,"the peace,"under dexterous management,might be very much more easily kept,your Lordship;nay,we almost think,if well let alone,it would in a measure keep itself among such a set of persons!And how it happens that when a poor hardworking creature of us has laboriously earned sixpence,the Government comes in,and (as some compute)says,"I will thank you for threepence of that,as per account,for getting you peace to spend the other threepence,"our amazement begins to be considerable,--and I think results will follow from it by and by.the most dexterous keeping of the peace,your Lordship,unless it be more difficult to do than appears!