f all
men, that our Governing Class, called by God and Nature and the
inflexible law of Fact, either to do something towards governing,
or to die and be abolished,--have not yet learned even to sit
still, and do no mischief! For no Anti-Corn-Law League yet asks
more of them than this;--Nature and Fact, very imperatively,
asking so much more of them. Anti-Corn-Law League asks not, Do
something; but, Cease your destructive misdoing, Do ye nothing!

Nature's message will have itself obeyed: messages of mere Free-
Trade, Anti-Corn-Law League and Laissez-faire, will then need
small obeying!--Ye fools, in name of Heaven, work, work, at the
Ark of Deliverance for yourselves and us, while hours are still
granted you! No: instead of working at the Ark, they say, "We
cannot get our hands kept rightly warm;" and _sit obstinately
burning the planks._ No madder spectacle at present exhibits
itself under this Sun.

The Working Aristocracy; Mill-owners, Manufacturers, Commanders
of Working Men: alas, against them also much shall be brought in
accusation; much,--and the freest Trade in Corn, total abolition
of Tariffs, and uttermost 'Increase of Manufactures' and
'Prosperity of Commerce,' will permanently mend no jot of it.
The Working Aristocracy must strike into a new path; must
understand that money alone is _not_ the representative either of
man's success in the world, or of man's duties to man; and
reform their own selves from top to bottom, if they wish England
reformed. England will not be habitable long, unreformed.

The Working Aristocracy--Yes, but on the threshold of all this,
it is again and again to be asked, What of the Idle Aristocracy?
Again and again, what shall we say of the Idle Aristocracy, the
Owners of the Soil of England; whose recognised function is that
of handsomely consuming the rents of England, shooting the
partridges of England, and as an agreeable amusement (if the
purchase-money and other conveniences serve), dilettante-ing in
Parliament and Quarter-Sessions for England? We will say
mournfully, in the presence of Heaven and Earth,--that we stand
speechless, stupent, and know not what to say! That a class of
men entitled to live sumptuously on the marrow of the earth;
permitted simply, nay entreated, and as yet entreated in vain, to
do nothing at all in return, was never heretofore seen on the
face of this Planet. That such a class is transitory,
exceptional, and, unless Nature's