Independently of political questions, the commonest cause of injustice in England is to be found in the ideas of class. The class of gentlemen has a tendency to give its sympathy, without question, to gentlemen, and to refuse it to those who are not, in its opinion, of that caste. One of the best examples of this tendency was the unanimity of the English gentry in their sympathy with the slaveholders during the American war of secession, purely on the ground that the slaveholders were a gentlemanly class. In comparison with this important point, the injustice of slavery itself sank into complete insignificance. The same rule of sympathy for gentlemen extends to the continent of Europe, although the gentlemen there are often of a very dubious species. Anybody who would put down French popular aspirations was sure of class sympathy in England. A French republican is simply a Frenchman who desires representative government, that is what he is; but class-antipathy set English gentlefolks against him, though they themselves had been the first to profit by representative institutions in their own country. So with regard to French conflicts between Church and State, the English upper classes always side instinctively with the Church, although they themselves accepted Church property after the great English spoliation, and many of them are still living upon it, some actually in the very walls of the old abbeys, others within sight of their ruins, whilst others, again, appropriate tithes. If a French mayor prohibits a religious procession it is an act of republican tyranny, yet Roman Catholic processions are not permitted in English streets, and the republicans do not carry their distrust of the clergy so far as to make them ineligible for the Chamber of Deputies as they are for the House of Commons. Neither is a French priest compelled to lay aside his ecclesiastical costume except when he goes to England. However, polite English sympathy with the Church of Rome has one incontestable merit; it is at the same time disinterested and unrequited. The Rev. Father du Lac, who took his Jesuit school to Canterbury after the Ferry decrees, and who enjoys British protection, calls Queen Victoria a monstrous anomaly, the anomaly being that royalty and heresy are monstrously combined in the person of Her Majesty.[49]
Injustice produced by Class Ideas in England itself.
The sharp separation of classes produces much injustice within the limits of England itself. When an Englishman feels himself authorised to despise his equal in wealth, culture, and wisdom, if he happens to be a dissenter, there is a strong temptation to do so, and we find public writers in England who quietly look down upon all dissenters en bloc as people of low caste and unrefined manners. After all, these wretched dissenters are Englishmen and Englishwomen, which is surely some title to consideration.
Superiority of many English People to Class Prejudices.
Class Prejudices amongst the French.
I am far from wishing to imply that the English never rise above the region of class prejudices. Many have done so, and these amongst the most distinguished. Shelley did so completely, Byron partially; in our own day several of the most famous poets and thinkers appear to live, intellectually at least, outside of class. My impression is that the French do not get rid of class prejudices so frequently as the English. If they belong either to the real or the false noblesse they think that noblesse oblige in a peculiar sense, that it lays them under an obligation to condemn popular aspirations without a hearing.
Comparative Mental Independence of the Poor.
It is difficult for the poor in any country to be just, because they so often suffer; still, in France, they are more frequently independent in their judgments than the upper classes, the proof being that they support a greater variety of opinions. You never know how a French peasant will vote till you know him individually, but you may predict to a certainty that a noble will vote against the republican candidate.
French Parties not becoming more Tolerant.
Whether, in quieter and more settled times, French parties will be less virulent, must depend upon the effects of experience. The events of the next decade may have either a calming or an exasperating influence. I do not perceive that parties have become more tolerant during the last ten years. The one good sign is, that with all their hatred they have avoided civil war.