"Great Achiever, first in place
England's son of Israel's race!
Man whom none could make afraid,
Self-reliant and self-made,—
Potent both by tongue and pen
In the hearts and mouths of men,
Wielder in each anxious hour
Of the mighty people's power,
Wise to scheme, and bold to do,
Who can this be,—history, who?
II.
"Heaper of a new renown
Even on Victoria's crown,
Mightiest friend of blessed peace
By commanding wars to cease,
Paralysing faction still,
Swift in act and strong of will,
Forcing every foe to cower
Under Britain's patient power,
Like himself, firm, frank, and true,
Who can this be,—justice, who?"
For other of my politicals, take this common-sense essay from my pen, hitherto unpublished:—
IS THE ONE-VOTE SYSTEM RIGHT OR WRONG?
In a nation self-governed through its own representatives, it seems reasonable to admit that each citizen should have a vote; each citizen, we say, simply as such; whether male or female, labourer, pauper, civil, military, naval, or official, every one not convicted of crime nor an attested lunatic, of full age, of sufficient capacity (evidenced by being able to read and write), celibate or married, rich or poor,—every person in our commonwealth should equitably, it may well be conceded, have his or her single vote in the government of the country. Poverty is no crime, therefore the Workhouse should not disfranchise; sex is no just disqualification, therefore the woman should have her vote as freely as the man, for surely marriage ought not to suffer derogation and disgrace by denial of the common right of citizenship as its penalty; the soldier, sailor, policeman, government-official, and any other class which may now be deprived of their birthright by law or custom, should certainly be admitted to the poll like other patriotic citizens; in short, manhood suffrage, it may be theoretically argued, is just and wise—manhood of course including womanhood, as suggested above; for even a wife either sides with her husband or controls him in common cases; and in the less usual instances where he rules, there need be no more tyranny about political matters than about domesticities, and so the home would scarcely be any the worse even for partisan zeal.
However, whilst admitting the theoretical propriety of a one vote for each citizen in the state, there remains to be considered the higher practical justice of many having more than one. Numbers alone are not the strength of a people; if of inferior quality they are rather its weakness. For the Parliament of England representation is demanded of all the virtues, talents, and acquirements, not certainly of the vice, ignorance, poverty, and other evils more rife among the lower rungs of the social ladder than to those above them. The single vote system (so far as the franchise has any influence at all) depresses and demoralises every class, as reducing all to one dead level. The ballot plan is now law and cannot well be done away with; but it is manifestly a humiliation for intelligence to have to sign with "his mark" in order that ignorance may thus feel itself on an equality; and for honest geniality to be hushed into silent secresy, that it may not put to shame the cunning fraud of a partizan who wishes to hide his real opinion. However, it is now too late to mend the ballot-box: let it be, and let the single voter use it if he pleases.
Another and a wiser scheme presents itself, practically (if possible) even now to avert the national ruin wrought by the machinations of a rash and blind self-seeking spirit of party, often, seen "hoist by its own petard," though too liable to destroy the foundations of society in the explosion. Shortly and simply, the scheme is this. Let every man, high or low, add to his one vote others as he may and can. Be there a vote for the Victoria Cross, another for the Albert Medal, another for long good-service in the household or the farm, another for any such intellectual exploits among the poor as Samuel Smiles has recorded; all these being accessible to the humblest, and so elevating them thus far. And now to ascend a few rungs, let additional votes be given to owners of a stated number of acres, to possessors of a certain amount of money, to those who have been deemed worthy of public honours, and the like. A little further, let every mayor of a town have his official vote, and the Presidents of the Royal Society and Royal Academy, and perhaps two or three other chiefs of science and art; and so forth.
Thus, then, we might get, by way of counterpoise to the voting power of a bare and overwhelming proletariat, the worthier and far sweeter voices of those who have virtues and excellences of various kinds to recommend them,—so that if the lowest constituent counts for one, the highest may add up to six or eight. And thus, while no one of the mob is denied his one vote, those who rise above the crowd receive the more than one they have earned by good-doing or position, and plump them all accordingly to the worthiest candidate.