But, instead,
what was the first, last, cardinal, crowning argument?--"The cost of
sedition!" "Revolutions interfered with trade!" and therefore they were
damnable! Interfere with the food and labour of the millions? The millions
would take the responsibility of that upon themselves. If the party of
order cares so much for the millions, why had they left them what they
are? No: it was with the profits of the few that revolutions interfered;
with the Divine right, not so much of kings, but of money-making. They
hampered Mammon, the very fiend who is devouring the masses. The one end
and aim of existence was, the maintenance of order--of peace and room to
make money in. And therefore Louis' spies might make France one great
inquisition-hell; German princelets might sell their country piecemeal to
French or Russian! the Hungarian constitution, almost the counterpart of
our own, might be sacrificed at the will of an idiot or villain; Papal
misgovernment might continue to render Rome a worse den of thieves than
even Papal superstition could have made it without the addition of tyranny;
but Order must be maintained, for how else could the few make money out of
the labour of the many? These were their own arguments.
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