THIS INTRODUCTION does not attempt to analyze the thought of John Stuart Mill; it attempts to provide the context of his contribution to newspapers. The limited task is quite sufficient. Mill wrote in the papers for more than fifty of his sixty-seven years, twice on a sustained basis, in the 1830s on France and in 1846 on Ireland. From the chaotic early years of the nineteenth century to the more organized life of Victoria’s heyday, he contributed practical and theoretical advice, sometimes hopefully, sometimes irately, frequently despairingly, to his stolid countrymen.

Newspapers were not his major medium—periodicals and books...

THE ARTICLES IN THESE VOLUMES span more than fifty years, from Mill’s first published letter in 1822 when he was sixteen years old, until his last leading article in 1873, the year of his death. The subjects range from abstract economics (with which he began) and practical economics (with which he ended), through French and British politics, reviews of music and theatre, and Irish land reform, to domestic cruelty, with glances at a multitude of events and ideas important to the nineteenth century. They therefore provide a needed perspective on his life and thought, giving a record of his ideas...

SIR,—In your notice of the late Meeting of the Political Economy Club, you have inserted a disquisition, which professes to be a refutation of Mr. Mill’s theory of value. I take the liberty of submitting to you several remarks which occurred to me on reading your article.

In the first place, if I rightly understand Mr. Mill’s chapter on Exchangeable Value,¹ he cannot be said with propriety to have any theory of value—at least, in that sense in which the word theory is applied to Mr. Ricardo’s doctrines on this subject. Mr. R. renders the wordvalue,as...

SIR,—In several of your recent Papers you have combated the opinion expressed by Mr. M’Culloch in his evidence, concerning the effect of the expenditure of Irish absentees on the prosperity of that country from which their incomes are drawn.¹ As I agree almost in every particular with Mr. M’Culloch, and think that the arguments which you have urged against him are fallacious, and that the notions which they inculcate are as pernicious as they are, unhappily, common, I submit to your well-known candour the following statement of my reasons for dissenting from your conclusion.

The income of a landlord,...

THE DEPARTMENTAL, OR GRAND COLLEGES, have now completed their operations throughout all France, except 19 departments. In those departments the elections were postponed by the Government, to afford time for the Court of Cassation to disfranchise a considerable number of electors who had been declared by the inferior Courts entitled to vote.

Exclusive of these nineteen departments, which include Paris, Rouen, and their vicinity, and in which the ministry are sure of a complete defeat, the departmental elections have afforded results as auspicious to the liberal cause as the elections for thearrondissemens.The royalists, indeed, still retain a majority,...

THE FRENCH CHAMBER OF DEPUTIES has continued, during the whole of the last week the important debate on the address.¹ Several orators of considerable ability have appeared among the new members; and several of those who had already distinguished themselves have signalized the present discussion by some of their most successful efforts.

The debate, too, comprehends every topic, both of internal and foreign policy; and contributes greatly to make known, and in no small degree probably even to form, the political views which will predominate in the conduct of the new Chamber.

We shall wait for the termination of this...

BRIDPORT.—The patriotic electors of this place are expected to return, (along with the present valuable member Mr. Warburton) Mr. John Romilly,¹ second son of the late Sir Samuel Romilly. They could not have found a more courageous or a more enlightened reformer, or a person more devoted, through good and evil report to the people’s cause. To this it should be added, that Mr. Romilly, though a professional lawyer, and practising in the most defective of all our law courts, the Court of Chancery, is yet among the warmest friends of a radical and systematic Law Reform.

LUDLOW.—In...

TOWARDS THE CONCLUSION of an article on France, in the last number of theQuarterly Review,written in the true spirit of that review, which may now be defined Toryism pretending to have grown desperate, we find the following paragraph:

The state of siege, and the bold and bloody, yet necessary and justifiable suppression of the sedition in June, 1832, have quieted matters for the present; and the construction of a circle of fortresses round Paris, under the flimsy and disgraceful pretext of guarding against foreign invasion, but for the real and convenient (though not very constitutional) purpose of bridling...

A PAMPHLET has just appeared, well deserving of the attention of electors, and of all who can exercise any influence over thedénouementof the present extraordinary crisis; while, at the same time, it stands broadly distinguished from any mere party production, and from works of temporary interest, by containing views and principles applicable to all time, stated and enforced with unusual energy and precision. The title of the pamphlet is,On National Property, and on the Prospects of the Present Administration, and of their Successors.—“The subjects of our title-page,” says the author, “may appear, at first sight, to...

THE PRESENT CONDITION OF IRELAND, in the midst of its danger and calamity, has that element of consolation which proverbially accompanies an intolerable excess of evil. It has brought things to a crisis. It has converted a chronic into an acute disease, which will either kill or be cured. It has made that singular state of society, which in Ireland is called law, property, and social order, simply a thing which cannot any longer hold together. The sluggish, well-meaning mind of the English nation, so willing to do its duty, so slow to discover that it has any duty to...

SIR,—You have lately quoted with approval, and thereby given additional publicity and weight to some articles in theDaily News,which purported to give an account of “The Literature of the Lower Orders,” meaning the cheap periodicals, and publications in series. The quality of the mental food and entertainment provided for the “lower orders” (if they are really the purchasers of this cheap literature) is so important a subject, that theDaily Newsis to be commended for directing attention to it; but that paper has unfortunately delegated the office of examining the publications in question to a person...

SIR,—The view which you have taken in your last and some previous numbers¹—or, I should rather say, the view which you appear disposed to take of—Polish and Hungarian affairs, seeming not to be characterised by your usual accuracy of information, you will, I hope, permit a warm friend and admirer of your principles and purposes to endeavour to set right what he regards as a complete misapprehension of the events now taking place in those countries.

You appear to look with suspicion on the great national movements in Poland and in Hungary as being aristocratic movements; not...