Political Extracts.

Anglo-Maori Warder, Volume 1, Issue 18, 24 August 1848, Page 3

Political Extracts.

THE CHARTIST MEETING AT KENNINGTON COMMON. (From the Morning Chronicle.) The coavocation and the convokers of the assembly, the folly of the opinions, and the misstatements uttered by the speakers, are so monstrous, that it is bard to treat them with the ceremonial of gravity, or look upon the ragged burlesque as a fact. But what more do not this and similar *' demonstrations" demonstrate ? It is absurd, unmeaning—the speakers talk balderdash, the audience is in r.igt—we and jeer when the meeting is over, and Captam Smith says to Doctor Jones, at hiß club, •* See how these fellows run before a shower of rain!" Yes, bat we have five thousand men skulking in schools, chapels, turnpikes, to fall on with staves, in cite the blessed shower should not intervene. It ts not a rabble which foims the mass of men who attend these meetings. Rogues take advantage of the opportunity to piller piemen, and smash windows, on the skirts of the mob, as others may do to break tne King's English, or " dash tbe whole thing into entire annihilation," at the head of it. But the main body of that vast multitude there trooped together are your fellow citizens—your equals, but for poverty—your brethren, gentlemen of Pall mall—aß honest as yo<, with as good brains as you, were they cultivated—and working daily and laboriously for a scanty pittance. What sympathy have the people there assembled with you—what have you with ihem ? The greater number of the Kenniagtua speakers don't appear to disguise their republicanism—aud let ns be fully sure they express the opinion of their audience. Tney believe thar Kings are tyrants, Lords are gorged with plunder, priests are hypocrites, and the aristccracy, comprising sbop-owuers, masters, &c, combined to rob tbe people. When that orator tells the people gravely, that the window smashing the other day was tbe work of the polire, one grieves not merely for the ignorance of men to whom such-falsehood could be credible, but the rancorous exaggeration of Jipßiili y which could render the falsehood welcome. What sympathy is there, indeed, between you and men who will believe such things of you! What? "Ask yourselves what sympathy you or your parish show ? Let any man of what it called a decent position answer. Yau don't know tbe people under your own roof, or care for them. The servants who walk into prayer* with your decent breakfast urn, may live with you for half a century, and be strangers to you. They address joa in a feigned voice, their commerce with you is a he. You hear them laughing and lalktog in their own quarters in a natural tone, quite difieieut to that servile one which they employ towards their misters. You would cousider them utolerably insolent if they dm otharwise. You teach your children to avoid commerce with those inhabitants of the lower regions, and take a pride that everybody should know his station. You pass the whole ol your life surrounded by myriads of human heings separated from you by the invisible taw of caete- The shopowuer who comes smirking to my Ladj's catriage in the rain, »coros the mau who closes up the shutters. The whole. bßlemao holds bimwU a[gof from the retail num. The

piecework laborer comes cap in hand wi'h his work to his employer, and humbles himself before him—the employer knows his station too. And so we go on, from life's beginning to its end, ignoring our neighbors and knowing our station, and in a system which, as surely as it encourages pride on one side, engenders distrust and hatred on the other. The latter people meet at Keanington Common, and if an orator will arise and tell them that the Ministry wants to rob them of their earnings—that three noblemen have possession of the property of London—that bishops aud parsons are hypocrites and tithe-pig devourers to a man they are glad enough to listen and to believe. Prudence, timidity, the question of the morrow's bread, scanty as that of to-day may be, may prevent the " dashing of the whole thing into entire annihilation," about which one of the speakers speculated—but will the upper classes ever acknowledge the truth that the multitude does not trust •' their betters," any more than their betters trust them ? Mr. G.W.M. Reynolds, I author of •• the Mysteries of London," *' Wagner the Wehrwolf," &c, bawling from a wsggon on Kensington Common, is, in htmnelf not rematkable as a philosopher, or much to be dreaded as a man of war—no more was Jack Cade an accomplished orator, nor a sound politic d economist—but, in fine, will all these Chartist meetiugs end in rain ?