Page:Walks in the Black Country and its green border-land.pdf/36

22 worked to a glorious victory against slavery in the British West Indies, and to an illustrious triumph at home against the Corn Laws. From the time, to use the old threadworn figure, that "victory perched upon the standard" of the Birmingham Political Union, "Peace. Law, and Order," no other flag has been reared, and no other force than it represented has been contemplated by any party or part of the English people with a view to political or social change. The ends for which the Political Union, the Anti-Slavery Society, and the Anti-Corn-Law League laboured, and the triumphs they won, were of immeasurable value in themselves; but the educational means they employed in enlightening the mind of the masses, in teaching them to think, reflect, compare, and observe for themselves, produced results of equal importance. Nor was this organization of the moral forces of a nation's mind limited in its benefits to England. Like the development and application of some new mechanical or natural force, it extended to other countries, where its operation is even more needed than it was in England. The Birmingham banner, "Peace, Law, and Order," as Lamartine said of the tricolour, will yet make the tour of the world, sweeping away with its white folds all the red flags of brute force, and rallying aggrieved populations to the platform instead of the barricade.