ORIGINAL CORRESPONDENCE.

Wellington Independent, Volume IV, Issue 288, 15 July 1848, Page 3

ORIGINAL CORRESPONDENCE.

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To the Editor of the Wellington Independent. Sin—The news received last week of the late revolution in France is of such various and overpowering interest, and it is so necessary that what 'if, t QXU be Set in its before all men, that perhaps you will allow me, though fully conscious how little competent I am to do justice to the glorious theme, to lay before your readers a few reflections, to which these events have given rise For many years past, the eyes of all who love freedom, and desire that justice and truth should no longer be the devout aspiration of the few, but have tree course and accomplishment in the actual working world, have been turned towards France with an intensity of expectation which it would be difficult to find terms to describe. In France, and in France only, could they hope to see any form aud embodiment given to the visions of good with which their hearts were filled, any realization achieved of tbe ideas and principles which were the sustenance of their moral life. But while there was much in the past to justify hope, there seemed to be much in the present to give ground for fear. It seemed as if the French, especially the middle classes, were forgetting the principles of the revolution, and becoming imbued with the selfish mercantile spirit, by which England at the present day is so unhappily distinguished. While " Fraternite," brotherhood, was one of the watchwords of the revolution, the opposite system, which the French call industiralism, threatened to substitute for it individualism and competition. The King and his Ministers did everything that they could to foster the growth of this new spirit, If men's minds were engrossed in the pursuit of wealth, they knew that they would cease to discuss principles or contend for the triumph of justice. They had much success for the time in the pursuance of this hateful policy, and great discouragement in consequence was given to the hopes of the friends of freedom and the revolution. These did uot venture to hope that the Republic would be established in France till after the death of Louis Philippe, if even then. But the event has proved that God's ways are not as our ways, and while we were almost despairing of His justice, He has suddenly raised up a great deliverance, which in its ultimate effects will reaclt all the oppressed throughout the earth. Let me briefly recapitulate the substance of these " glad tidings," which are come to all people.

Roused by a most arbitrary and unjust act on the part of Louis Philippe and his ministers, the people of Paris rose in arms, and demanded that the obnoxious ministry should be dismissed. In vain had the city, in anticipation of such a crisis, been inundated with troops; when the decisive moment came, they for the most part refused to act against their brothers. The King then saw that all was over; his heart failed him; and he abdicated the throne in favour of his grandson, the Count of Paris. Bui when his friends proposed this in the Chamber of Deputies, an ominous voioe replied, ' It is too late.' Yes, it was indeed too late ; and the baleful phantom of Royalty will overshadow fair France no more. A provisional Government was immediately •et up, which by proclamation, has called upon the people to decide in what manner public affairs shall be administered for the future, has pronounced that the Chamber of Peers is extinct, aud has declared that every Frenchman of full age belongs to the National Guard, and shall have a vote in the election of the Nation's Representatives. Freedom, Equality, Brotherhood, ore laid down as the principles which ought to lie at the root of all Government, that is, of all sopial organization amongst men.

Freedom, Equality, Brotherhood ! There is someting in the very sounds which is refreshing to the hearts of those, who are wearied with the mingled selfishness and servility that characterise this iron age. Yet even these words iv the mouths of the insincere, might be as empty and meaningless, as religion is in the mouth of a clerical pluralist. Let us then try to discover, what the French really mean by them; let us fin! out, if we can, what there was in these words, which could fire the soul of Rousseau with enthusiasm, and cause them to be adopted as a sacred " symbolum fidei" by the mysterious society of the Illuminati.

I First, Freedom. We English are accustomed to think that there is no nation in the world so free as ourselves, and that all that foreigners have to do in order to obtain freedom is to adopt our " blessed and glorious constitution" at once. I shall not attempt to combat this opinion, but shall merely observe that the freedom which the French have in view is certainly not such as that, enjoyed by the English labourer, which may be described as, liberty to work like a slave as long as he has any strength left, and then—to go into the workhouse. Nor is it like the freedom of the agod couple to whom when poverty lias driven them into the poor-house, the laws of a free country deny the miserable consolation of living together, and lightening by companionship the load of grief: No ; rather it is the freedom of men, whom no class-legislation, no injustice of society, hinders from developing to the utmost the faculties which God bus given them, aud reaping the due and natural reward of their labours. It is that freedom, iv the spirit of whioh the Provisional Government declares that every Frenchman belongs, as such, to the National Guard, and must be ready to fight or die, if need be, for the common weal. Alas ! what is our National Guard? An army of policemen, selected for their size and strength, as we choose our house-dogs, and paid by the rich classes, that they may keep the poor from their throats ! There are many other things, in regard to which not only positive laws, but the whole structure of society in the present day deprive men and women of that liberty of action which is their birthright. In Franco more attention has been paid to these subjects than among ourselves, and thus we may hope-to see some progess made. In England this whole class of questions has beeu left so entirely unexamined and

undiscussed, that any allti3ion to it here would be more likly to give offence than to do any good. Equality.— .Christianity tells us that all m ;n are the children of God, all equal in His sight. But when it logical individual argues from this equality before 00l that there ought to be the like equality before men, he is met by a reference to soma of those texts which have always been popular with tyrants and their supporters, such as " Fear God and honor the King," " Submit yourselves :o eve -y ordinance of man," &c. These injunctions, which perhaps were suitable enough at the time they were given, are absurdly exalted into commands' applicable to a : l circumstances and all times ! Such an answer will not satisfy him, who ha-; a faith iv man which nothing can shake, and a love for man, before which all conventional distincions fade away, and men are seen to be one great brotherhood, drawing their life from the same fountain, aud journeying towards the same goal. And this brings us to the third principle, without which Freedom and Equality are impossible. For the common objection against Equality, that the natural inequalites of talent and skill would soon destroy it, even if it were once established, is unanswerable, if it Ls admitted that the mass of mankind are and always must remain selfish, but falls at onoe, the moment we can conceive the possibility of a community, or a nation, feeling and acting towards one another as brothers, not as rivals, as fellow-workers, not as masters and servants, or as employers and employed, Already has this principle of association been acted upon in France to a considerable degree, and now we may hope to see its effects still more widely spread. " The world," says a celebrated American writer, <l ia awaking to the idea of union, and these experiments [Fouirerism St. Simonism, &c] show what it is thinking of. It is, and will be, magic. Men will live aud communicate, and plough, and reap, and govern, as by added ethereal power, when once they are united; as in a celebrated experiment, by expiration and respiration exactly together, four persons lift a heavy man from the ground by the little finger only, and without sense of weight,"

With this ext-act I shall conclude, that I may not exact too much from the patience of your readers. I am, Sir,

Your obedient servant, F.H.