we allude have greatly overshot their mark, and have arrived at hasty conclusions, both as to the cause of the evil and as to its remedy. The Communist notions which peep through the present publication, are not likely to forward the progress of a great cause. But those ideas evidently have their origin in a deep conviction either that Government has been wanting in its duty of protecting the interests of the masses, or that it has erred by adopting an active line of policy, to which the whole evil may be traced. Both propositions will bear all argument. It would be easy to point out many instances in which Government has refrained, to the public prejudice, from using its directive power; and instances, still more numerous, in which legislative measures have been proposed and carried, directly hostile to the best interests of the nation. And therefore, although some remedies which have been proposed may appear absurd, fantastic, or even worse, we are not entitled, on that account, to drop the investigation. Failing the suggestion of possible cures, people will grasp at the impossible; but the tendency to do so by no means negatives the existence of the disease. There is at present, we believe, but little or no active agitation for the Charter. So much the better. If the experience of 1848 has taught the working-men that this demand of theirs is as visionary as though they had petitioned for a Utopia, they will be more prepared to listen to those who have their welfare thoroughly at heart, and who have no dearer or higher wish than to see Englishmen dwelling in unity, peace, and comfort in their native land; all these disastrous bickerings, feuds, and jealousies extinguished, and order and allegiance permanently secured, as the result of an altered system of domestic policy, which shall have for its basis the recognition and equitable adjustment of the claims of British industry. The task may be a difficult one, but it is by no means impossible. Every day some fallacy, hatched and industriously propagated by selfish and designing men, is exposed or tacitly withdrawn; every day the baneful effects of cotton legislation become more apparent. If the representations of the Free-Traders were true, the condition of the working-classes would now have been most enviable. Is it so? The capitalist, and the political economist, and the quack, and the Whig official may answer that it is; but when we ask the question of the masses of the people, how different is the tenor of the reply! Next month we propose to resume the consideration of this most important topic. FOOTNOTES: [48] _Alton Locke, Tailor and Poet: an Autobiography._ In 2 vols. London: Chapman and Hall, 1850.