BRITAIN'S PROSPERITY. A NEW SONG, WHICH OUGHT TO HAVE BEEN SUNG BY THE PREMIER AT THE OPENING OF PARLIAMENT.
Reading edition
I.
News for you, gentlemen! Here is prosperity, Fat and fullhanded, arrived at our door: Crashes, disaster, and famine's severity, Never can harass or trouble us more. No miching malecho! Spin away calico! Never saw man such a prospect before!
II.
All things are cheapened. Good sirs, in the galleries, Pray bear this cheerful announcement in mind— All things are down—except Ministers' salaries, Taxes, and some little jobs of the kind. Small trades are finishing, Wages diminishing— That is the way to be happy, you'll find.
III.
Wheat's at a price that won't pay for the growing it, That is to say, if we cultivate here; Why should we therefore persist, sirs, in sowing it? Beautiful markets are plenty and near. Hang the home labourer! Buy from your neighbour, or Any one else, so you don't buy it dear.
IV.
True pioneers of a better and brighter age, We have diminished the charges for freight; Some little dues there may still be for "lighterage,"4 But, on the whole, 'tis a moderate rate. Wheat for a guinea a Load from Volhynia Comes to your shores, and is lodged at your gate.
V.
Huxtable's pigs, though replete with ammonia, Never worked any such wonders as these; Barley from Mecklenburg, grain from Polonia, Butter from Holland, American cheese; Bacon gratuitous, Cargoes fortuitous, Float to our coasts with each prosperous breeze.
VI.
What need we care though a desperate peasantry Prowl round the stackyards with tinder and match? Blandly we'll smile at such practical pleasantry: Downing Street is not surmounted by thatch. We're not prohibiting Some gentle gibbeting When the poor starving delinquents you catch.
VII.
Cobden, our oracle, swears it is vanity Ever to dream of protection again: Wilson declares it is downright insanity, Also he proves it by figures and pen. Sheets arithmetical, Clearly prophetical, Flow from the quills of these eminent men.
VIII.
Likewise M'Gregor, that brilliant Glaswegian, Whom we desiderate always to speak, Hath, by the aid of some second-sight Stygian, Promised us shortly two millions per week. "Whaur shall we pit it, sirs?"— Wait till you get it, sirs! Zooks! what a prospect of bubble and squeak!
IX.
As for you paltry persisting Protectionists, Why should you prate of the labourer's cause? Don't you observe you are mere Resurrectionists Trying to get at the grave of the laws? Honest Peel strangled them, Then the Whigs mangled them, Coffined, and sank them with Cobden's applause.
X.
Any such notions I think you had best bury Deep in the grave where your idol is laid: Then, from the lips of the member for Westbury, Take a sound lesson in matters of trade. List to his prophecies— We'll keep our offices Snug, till your final conversion is made.
XI.
Deuce take those breechesless rascals the Highlanders! Let them go starve on their beggarly hills: Irish impostors, and kelp-making Islanders, Can't they find room in our poor-law Bastilles? Or, for variety, Though there's satiety, Let them be packed to the calico mills!
XII.
Wages must tumble, like leaves in a hurricane, Under this grand competition for work: Britons shall toil for the Jew and American, Chinaman, Spaniard, Mulatto, and Turk— Each village Hannibal, Fierce as a cannibal, Eyeing his neighbour like Bishop or Burke!
XIII.
These are the triumphs of science political— These are the views by the Whigs patronised. Tories may scout them; but, ne'ertheless, it I call Such a grand scheme as was seldom devised. How is it robbery? Cheapness and jobbery Are the twin saints whom we've just canonised.
XIV.
Under the free-trading auspices, true it is Some time or other taxation may pinch. Then for a shy at the Funds and Annuities! We'll take a yard since you gave us an inch. Hush, Mr Newdegate! Why not repudiate, Just as was done by the pupils of Lynch?
XV.
Worthy Sir Robert, that statesman immaculate, Doubled his fortune by doubling the pound: Even the wisest may sometimes miscalculate— Surely he will not object to refund? "That were a merry go! See you at Jericho!" O—very well—I abandon that ground.
XVI.
Shortly—I say, with habitual bonhomie, Everything's quite as we Ministers wish, Plenty and peace are combined with economy, Food is abundant—provide you the dish. Pay to the foreigner, Peasant and mariner, All you can raise for your loaf and your fish.
XVII.
Banish all notions of British ascendency, Let them be wiped from our memory quite; Modern views have an opposite tendency, As hath been clearly expounded by Bright. Let us be sensible— Britain's defensible, Not by brute force, but by maxims of right.
XVIII.
We, for the voice of the populace amorous, Willing to do anything they require, Shall, if hereafter they chance to grow clamorous, Yield just precisely the thing they desire: We are quite ready to March with a steady toe Out of the frying-pan into the fire.
XIX.
Stink, like the inmates of Huxtable's piggery, Up to the knees in an exquisite draff, Stand the determined apostles of Whiggery, Chewing the grain, and rejecting the chaff. Ay, Mr Huxtable! Not from your muck stable, Issues so hearty a grunting or laugh!
XX.
This, I maintain, of our state is the very type— Joseph's fat cattle and atrophied kine. We, for the first, may be ta'en by Daguerreotype: Who are the second, you well may divine. Yea, of a verity! Britain's prosperity, Means nothing else than the measure of mine!