Political Extracts.

Anglo-Maori Warder, Volume 1, Issue 21, 14 September 1848, Page 3

Political Extracts.

WHAT IS THE ARISTOCRACY. (From tne Times April 22) "Know thyself" is a lesson which should be inculcated on states UNKNOWN less than on individuals. It is very possible for a nation to l ve to a very good old age—some eight or ten centuries —and jet to be profoundly ignorant ot it* own talents, Us failings, its weakness, or its \irtu»s, Nay, reient ixjerience has shown tbat a great country may go on like M. Juurdiau, talking a political language of which it kmns ntither the name nor tiie symbol*. Knghtnd ia m that pr*dicamrnt. For the last 100 years at least she haß been duping herself into the belief that she enjoys a united form of govenment, and that us elements are the CroAii, the Loids, and the Commons. This turns out to be a msre phantasy; end at a late day in our national existence those well-informed gentry, the French journalists, humanely come forward to set us right in our estimate of ourseUes, and iodortrinate us with a ttue conception of our own social cordition. According to thece eminent and practical teachers, Englaud is, and has been, groaning under the yoke of a butdeusome und cruel*rit>ljcracy which prevents till her workmen fiom ear-n-ng hve ah'Ungs a day,—it is the arutycracy which claims for property tie rights which a r «*.due to labour alone,—it w the ariatacrucy v,liith suj'p'rt* the cumbrous imposition uf c&fiul upon industry, it is the nmtocracywhicbcrushesUiti ingenuous aspirutious of an embryo Guard wi h the hateful staves of ipecial coußtabks ; finally, it i» the arutocracy—tlic detested aristocrac)—nhicii, with it*

ewn kid gloves and tight pantaloons, checked the Chartist movement on the luth of April, and forbade London to be irrigated with blood, or Trafalgar Square planted with poplars. This it great teaching. We ought to be, and we are, deeply thankful lor it. It proves to ns, if need there were for ptoof, how acutely observant our transmarine neighbours are of us tnd our iusiitutions, and how little their observation is clouded by the haze of the revolutions which surround tbsm. We cau hardly repay attentions so touching and bo timely ; perhaps the best return we can make is to explain our own popular—but of course unphilosophical—o"tions on the subject. We would do this not in the spirit of refutation or disbeliet, but simply by way of retailing a kindness, and showing how differently two nations may view the very same object. t Now, our French contemporaries will hardly believe us when we say, that in England we are all puzzled as to <be meaning of the word " aristocracy." The term is common enough, we. admit, but the definition is not a whit the more easy fur that. Tike any five men you meet going along the Stiand, and ask them what their definition of the aristocracy is, and we warrant not two will agree about it. The one will say, it's the House of Lords, another the squirearchy, a third the people about the Court, a forth the bankers, and a Ef.h—a Communist out of work—will poinl to a large jeweller's or mercer's shop, and exclaim, " that's ihe aristocracy." Now, all these aie wrong, anil at the same time right. The aris ocrscy is not the House of Lords, uor the mercantile class, nor the bishops, nor the shopkeepers. Yet it wonld be difficult to define tha English aristocracy so aa wholly to exclude those element* from its composition. Were any one to nt eoopt this, he would be in the predicmient of a costermonger who, in addressing a holiday s * eep in Ihe pit oi the theatre, besan with—" You and the rest uf the lower orders." " Lower orders 1 what do you mean by that ?" was the indignant reply of the puiifier of chimn»ys, whose social views contemplated an infanty of lauis beneath his own. The fact is, the grades of our society, like the finest shot siln, glide so imperceptably from one shade into another, that it i« almost impossible to note where one begins and another ends. Rank and property may in some degree segregate their actual possessors Iroin other classes, but they do not, as in some continental states, extend the sanctity »f privilese even to prr-xi. j mate successors and presumptive heirs. The des.ined inheritor of a peerage may be, and not uufrequemly has been, engaged in trade or manufactures. Not long ago the successor to one of the highest titles in the British dominions had to be fetchej from the vaults which he occupied as a nine merchant. At thepresei.t moment, the cadets of many nub'e families, dropping their honorary prefix, are «c»tte red over different parts of ihe empire, following advoc.tions wliich, whether mercantile or p'ofeabioual, are at all evenlß incompatible with the exclusive privileges of an aristocratic cast. One man who knows that his sou must some day inherit a Scotch peerage is feeding sheep at the Cape, or shearing them in Australia; another, again, unacle on his pitiauce to support tue dignity of a baronet at home, has buried it lor a time in the forests of New Zealand or North America. A third bi iogs to | the most laborious and most lucrative or professions a name first mode illustiious by similar exertious, and remws his aneestial honours at their parent source. That which we have said of rank applies more st-ougly to wealth. In a mercantile nation there are but few families whose fortunes ire not affected by the fluctuations of trade and the embarrassments ot commerce. Our commeicial ads'OClacy is perpetually losing and receiv ing blood ; perpe Daily d, crnsted, and perpetually recruited. Take, as an instance the great cily house of Hobbs, Dobbs, and Fubbs. Houbs has tu leality relir<d trom active business, and bequeathed the tutelary auspice of his n-ime to his younger partners. Hi" country house is in Su-.rey, his town bouse in Portland-place. His rldcst sou has a commission in the Lancers; his second is at the Chancery bar; his youngest holds a country living. Mrs. HoOl'S has an Opera box, gives splendid dinners, aud speculates on a Viscount and a Karouet tor her accomplished Adehza and Geortiana. Mr. Hobbs is a type of our coiumtrcial aristocracy; proud of his tonune and his family ; nut ashamed to own that he has made both nimsell, aud lond of telling how he came up to town with only 4 Id. in his pucaet and his mother's blessing. What Hobbs alieady is, Dobbs and Fubbs hope to be. Already Mesdames Dobbs and Fubbs look wuh an anxious eye upon the opeia box and the dinuirs in Portland-place. Already they sigh for a more rustic retreat and a greater metropolitan display. lint Dobbs and Fubbs are prudent men. Dobbs lives at C.'dph,m, and contents Mrs. Dobbs with a three week's gauty in the season, and an autumnal trip to the coast. Fublis lives at Blackhealb, where he ocea,ioual y gives a low church dinner, and from the sodtudes of whicti'Mrs. Fubbs evolves at intervals into the religious dissipation of But tbe two partners are doom, d men. Despite prudence, despite care, despite savin,;, despite knuwiug, Dobbs and Fubbs fail. A great house at Hamburgh goes; another at Calcutta follows ; bids protested ieturn upon the embarrassed firm, and they are ruined. The petty liabilities ot Hobbs are Soon discharged j but the whole fortunes of Doubs and Fubbs are umble to satisfy theirs. The modest carnage—the plate with Dobbs's bard-found ciest and arms —the pony with which little Fubbs had been presented for his premature development at school—all are surrendered to the hammer. Fubbs, who had not long since emerged frum the chrysalis condition ol a protracted clerkship, uuets the storm wi.h loiiitude, goes manfully iuto the Gazelle, and begins life a«ain as a clerk. But as lor poor Dobbs—painstaking, ploddin?, ambitious, careworn Dubbs—the blow stuns him. After selling all—alter seeing one son go into Smith's retail hosiery house as a supernumerary shopboy, another enter Thompson's wholesale warehouse as an office-sweeper—after witnessing his only daughter (tuat daughter whose education cost him i.300 a-year) sent off to be a governess in a retired irade-niau's family, where she is to teach French, music, Italian, and German, for i. J 4O a-year, poor Dobbs loses his senses. A partial recovery of hia intellect finds him u'ter-y destitute of means ot subsistence. Old Hobbs supports him for some time; but o'd Hobos died. Alter toat he ha, no friend but the paiish, no retreat but the uuion workhouse. Thither he turns his ajea 1 steps, and is welcomed there by trie comfortable man on. who twenty years ago commenced life as his housemaid. Such is a picture of a not uncommon vicissitude in England. Hobbs. Dobbs, and Fubbs all sprang Iruni what are called in France " the people." They all had the same stait in life, and up to a certain age the same success. Hobbs, by a lucky accident, avoided the misfortunes of his partners. They, by an unities.* catastrophe, missed his elevation. The first died a Member of Paihameut—one of the goieruing class 1 aving his son vwth means to follow in his slep-, and tqual his exaltation. The third died a cle-k in ounifurtrhle circumstances —ulie oi the inidd e classes: the second, a pauper. Now, a very slight dithrtnce ol age and opportunity would have reversed heir respective fates. Dubbs and Fubbs might haw become senatori, and Hobbs hive died in a po.T house.

It is, then, absurd to ta'k of aristocratic priviletea and aristocratic predominance in a country where the members of different cl«sses are in a continutl state of reciprocal o-cillation; where th'»se at the top of the wheel are rnmin" down, and those at the bottom rroi g up ; where the upper cla«e« are recruited from the middle, and tl c middle from the upper and lower tosethtr; vvbe'e misf-rtunc or imprudence humbles rank and strips pomp of its appanarje; but where prudence, ability, snd o,>portunity seldom fail to cronn their possessers with merited honours. That fortune is variable, and luck caprci- •«», is the destiny of man. That ? old is not picked up in the strerts nor tit'es showered down from heaven llhe mnnnx, is but exposition of thepumeval |law which enjoined that man should life by the sweat of his brow, ft'ere it otherwise, there would be no labour, no emulation, no prudence, no economy. But the simple fact that these conlingen. cies and conuiiions an' alike to nearly all, aud that industry, fcominy, «nd capacity do, in tlie majority of cases, lead to sta-ion and wealth, is to our vulgar English mind a sati>fac - ory indication that we are not insulted by the sectarian privileges of a uionopoliit class, nor rough-ridden by the insolence of a dominant caste. Our aristocracy is manifold, and from many sources. Its greatest recommendation in our eyes is, that it is not for the most part very ancient, nor at all exclusive. The highest portion of it—the peeragehas been drawn from the families of shopkeepers, lawyers, surgeons, and country par uns. Our lowes reckons amongst its elements the fallen representatives of aocient homes, and tin victnis of commetcial mischance. The one carries alone; with it the feelings and prejudices of its origin; the utter in its descent does not foritt the tastes. Ihc habiis, and the bearing of the order from which it has h en disjointed. Can acoun'ry whose social conditions ore of this kind, be justly said to be tyrarnzed over by one monopolist, exclusive, and invariable diss ?