without educated will, a new form of Anarchy, only miscalled republican. Already it is said to us-Your theories are beautiful, but impracticable; long years must pass, and much preparation, before even fragments of them can be realized.' It is for us to demonstrate the practicability of republicanism. The day will come also in which power shall be in our hands, when the men of our own party will ask -'How now to act ?' To forestall this question I now endeavour to utter something like a republican programme, a scheme of reform, such as I believe to be practicable from the very day of the establishment of the People's majority.

d

I put forth the programme, not dogmatically. The creed, indeed, which I have confessed I must hold unaltered. I do not ask my countrymen merely to consider to what portions of that they can assent, how far they will go with me there; but I ask them to join me under that banner, and I ask none to join me unless they can accept the creed and its consequences, without reserve. But beyond the principles there is no dogma. My exposition of those principles is open to correction: it should be the first business, of those who join me, to reconsider and maturely weigh that exposition to detect any possible want of exactness in the deductions, and only to subscribe to it when fully convinced that its teachings are true and logically consequent on the confession of our faith. My plan of association and propagandism may be mended or modified or altered, according to circumstances: I did but, since some one must begin, suggest an outline for my brothers utterly without organization. So also the republican measures, which I now attempt to enunciate, are but propositions for the consideration of those with whom I hope to act. I offer them as texts for their debating; and when I come to discourse upon these texts I shall still be only uttering my undogmatic opinion of the business before us. Let all who call themselves Republicans, all who care to establish a real republican party in England, labour earnestly with me to master both the theory and practice of our faith. Without further preface I submit the following measures of reformation as necessary for the government of England as a Republic.

REVOLUTIONARY MEASURES.

Abolition of Monarchy, the House of Lords, the Peerage, and all laws of primogeniture and entail.

Severance of the connection between the 'Church' and the State.
Abolition of all restrictions upon the Press, direct or indirect.

d Pages 8-9.

About Monarchy we need scarcely trouble ourselves: it will die out quietly. But the House of Lords is a mischievous impediment to legislation, and, with all its accompaniments, will need extinguishing on the first opportunity.

f That Church which is no longer the Church of the Nation, but a mere sect. Besides, even if it was the Church of the majority, its present connection with the State would be intolerable. It is indeed a part of the business of the Government to teach the essentials of religion, those essentials which are common to all sects; but never to force particular forms upon the people, or to give one sect (however numerous) a preference to the others. A State Church must be capable of embracing men of all denominations; or its existence is insupportable.

INSTITUTIONAL MEASURES.

Establishment of the republican form of Government; and of Universal Suffrage of men and women, exercised directly, and absolutely in right of their existence as human beings and component parts of the nation.

Adoption of a written Constitution based upon republican principles, unalterable in its fundamental rules even by the majority of the nation."

Unity of power. One single representative Assembly, elected by the majority of the nation, enthroned as the nation's servants, to realize the programme of the Constitution, to work within those prescribed limits. Every project of law to be submitted to the whole people. The Executive chosen by the Assembly and subordinate to it.

Absolute freedom of opinion and the utterance of opinion, whether in the press, the pulpit, the public meeting, or the association.

Inviolability of the right of association, whether for political, religious, or social purposes. Abrogation of all laws against combination or partnership.

Recognition of the right to labour, with a special minister to superintend its realization. Establishment of a system of credit for the assistance of the labourer, specially in times of difficulty. Access to the land to be facilitated. Improved modes of transit and scientific appliances rendered available to the agriculturist and mechanic; agricultural associations and trades-unions encouraged; rewards for inventors and public benefactors, and abolition of all patent and copyright. Freedom of Trade so far as not to contravene the rights of Labour. Establishment of public bazaars and storehouses.

Ample provision, at the cost of the State, for the infirm and aged.

National education, under the superintendence of the Government, for all the children of the nation, obligatory and at the public expense. The noble function of teacher adequately rewarded and elevated to its due rank in the consideration of the people. Establishment of colleges of art, science, and literature, free of charge and accessible to all classes of the nation. Establishment of schools for teachers. Establishment of a general system of religious worship based upon generally acknowledged truths, for the religious teaching of the nation. Marriage and Divorce free.

ADMINISTRATIVE AND JUDICIAL REFORMS.

i

Simplification of laws. The multitude of present laws to be repealed, and a new code framed, written in plain language.

Simplification of the machinery of law and justice. The public service to be democratically organized: Capacity the only condition of eligibility; every functionary to be utterly independent in all matters not appertaining to his office.

Let the monarchist sneer, out of loyalty to his Queeu; let the Whig Reformer eat his own words-Taxation without representation is tyranny.' The Republican can only be true to his principles. Right and Duty are of no sex.

There is of course no power to prevent the majority from doing as they like. But after all, the constitution is the compact between the majority and the minority. If the minority breaks that bond, it is rebellion against the State; if a majority breaks it, the minority retires into its right of individuality, and resumes the duty of protest and insurrection. Sce note f, page 86.

Justice prompt and without cost. Appointment of a public prosecutor; in demnification of the injured. Abolition of death-punishment, of imprisonment for debt, of flogging, and of transportation.

Revision of the Articles of War. The Army, Navy and Marine to be reörganized democratically: merit to be the only qualification for rank. Improvement in the treatment of the lower classes of the service. Abolition of the disgraceful system of flogging.

Formation of a national guard of all men capable of bearing arms; and great reduction of the standing army.

The care of the infirm and aged, the local organizations of labour, local arrangements and improvements, election of district magistrates, police, and all other matters of local administration, to be under local controul, subordinate to the sovereign authority of the nation.

FINANCIAL REFORMS.

Simplification of taxation: one single direct tax for all national purposes, supplied by a rental charged on the whole land." Abandonment of the present complicated system,-assessed and income taxes, customs, excise, tithes, church and poor rates, highway rates, tolls, and county rates (except for absolutely local purposes).

Appropriation by the State of crown-lands, church-lands, waste-lands, 1 streams, and mines; and of all roads, railways, and canals: giving equitable compensation to the present holders.

Centralization and regulation of banks for the benefit of the whole nation. Reform of the funding system, and settlement of the National Debt.

COLONIAL REFORM.

Self-government guaranteed to every colony: the Home-government only protecting the colony so long as it may require. The independence of every colony looked forward to and promoted.

INTERNATIONAL REFORM.

Abandonment of the foul tricks of diplomacy and solemn denial of the false principle of non-intervention. Foreign policy to be regulated by the principle of republican Duty, based on faith in the harmonization of Humanity.

Respect to every nationality; brotherly alliance with the nations; and ready aid to the oppressed.

To get rid of the centralization which now overburdens both the legislative and the executive. In the Republic it is not the business of government to interfere with local management. Every member of the body politic should be as far as possible complete in itself: the government the general superintendant and harmonizer of the whole.

So, without confiscation, resuming the nation's property in the land: insisting upon the terms of the landlords' original contract.

Not therefore necessarily to enclose those 'waste' lands; but at all events to prevent private encroachments.

1

Let it be borne in mind that the programme I have here put forth is intended only as subject for republican consideration. Not that I have uttered it unadvisedly. It is the summary (though perhaps incomplete) of my deliberate views, a collection of texts upon which I shall proceed to discourse at length in future numbers of the English Republic.' I give them first as a whole, that the relation of each to the rest may be observable as we go on; and now, bespeaking the attention of my readers to the series of articles in explanation of this preliminary, I beg them to read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest' them, making them the occasion for debates in their meetings, whether in private or in public, that so, by the elaboration of thought, our plans may become to us as clear as our principles, that when the day of our certain triumph shall arrive, we may be prepared to carry out our professions, to put our theories into practice, to justify our irreconcileable opposition to 'things as they are.'

My object is to create a republican party which shall understand how to act, whether in opposition or in power; which, having ever before its eyes a clear ideal of good government, shall know what course to take with regard to the bitby-bit reforms for which middle-men of as little foresight as principle bargain with Monarchy; what course to take when, Monarchy being no more, the quarrel shall come to an undisguised issue between the 'moderate' Anarchists and the consistent Republicans. Let us study to be so enlightened that the national recognition of our principles may not be unnecessarily deferred, and that we may not be found deficient on the morrow of our victory!

THE LAND QUESTION:

AND THE IRISH TENANT-LEAGUE.

EXT to the Suffrage, which must ever be our first care, because it is the very foundation of the Republic, and the only key to any sure and thorough reform, the most vital question to both England and Ireland is the Land question. More important to the present moment than even Education: not only because without the material means of life the culture of the mental and moral faculties is impossible, but also because, while anything like a real Education can never be obtained except from the People's Government, this question of the right to the soil may, nay, most likely will, have to be fought out between the yet unenfranchised People and their oppressors. This is the one great question destined, on both sides of the Channel, for some time at least, to supersede all others. In Ireland the war has already commenced; and in the next campaign England also must take part.

The main Principles of the Irish Tenant-League are simply these:-It demands that in all cases of contested valuation between landlord and tenant, the State

shall interfere and compel a fair valuation; that so long as rent at that valuation. shall be paid the tenant shall not be disturbed in his holding; and that the tenant shall have the right of selling his interest where he can. The two last provisions are unobjectionable; but the first seems liable to demurral, inasmuch as it tacitly recognizes the landlord's right to the land. The Tenant-League goes not far enough. It is true that under the special and painful circumstances in which Ireland is placed, it may seem expedient not to push the question of right to its extreme, not to challenge the enemy à outrance; the wreck of the whole country was imminent, and there were at least grounds for thinking it wise rather to aim at what seemed more speedily attainable, and to effect a compromise for a time; it may be, too, that there is little immediate hope, in a land whose people have been decimated by continually recurring famines, to make the question one for the lowest peasant as well as for the farmer. And we might leave to Irish patriotism to judge of these matters, but that the question comes also here; it is becoming our own. Doubly so, if the battle must be fought here before even Ireland can win. And that it must be fought here, that our English contingent is necessary to insure the victory, even the bravest and most sanguine of the Irish party will scarcely venture to deny. That subtle and overbearing tyrant called the Imperial Legislature can only be coerced by the united efforts of both countries. How then shall England be moved to the quarrel?

Not by a Tenant-League (which, it is well to note, would be far more exclusive here than in Ireland), and not by the requirement of a compulsory valuation. The first would fail to enlist either the peasant or the mechanic, the second would insure the desertion of the free-trader. The most aggrieved, the most enlightened, and the most influential, would all be kept out of our ranks.

Why should the labourer move for a Tenant League? It would not help him to the Land, nor materially alter his wages. Does he have his wages raised when rents are lowered? or can he do more than starve when his master is rackrented? Or what interest has the mechanic in merely adjusting the relations between two classes, or rather two sections of a class, which as a class is uniformly opposed to him, both socially and politically: socially by driving men from the land and so thronging the towns with hungry competitors for the mechanic's insufficient wage, politically by their combination to refuse him his rights of citizenship? And the free-trader,-will the most brazen-faced of those who are hoping to buy the land cheaply, dare to assert the duty of the State to arrange the relations between landlord and tenant, while he denies the right of the State to interfere between employer and employed?

Who would there be to join an English Tenant League? The farmers. But the English farmers are not in the position of the Irish. With no lack of real grievances, they are yet not subject to the rack-rent and eviction system of Ireland. As a class they are better off than the Irish; on better terms too with their lords. As a body they are not yet prepared to move; and they will not move till, compelled to choose between their labourers and their landlords, they shall learn that it is their true interest to join the first against the last. But they have not learned this yet.