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man who, in this sense is a "Liberal" and a "financier," was solemnly made over by Lord Hartington to Lord Salisbury. It is remarkable that the Liberal Press seem overburdened with joy at having got rid of him, while the Conservative Press has not as yet expressed overwhelming gratitude at his self-devotion to their cause. The effect, however, on Lord Salisbury was remarkable, and Mr. Goschen must have been astounded at his own surpassing value. Lord Salisbury passed at once from the depths of humility and despair to the extremity of confidence and arrogance. He did something which would almost make us doubt his sanity, were we not to remember that insanity and overbearing arrogance are often similar in their effects. Sending for a list of his Cabinet, this eccentric Prime Minister struck his pen through the names of Lord Cross and the late Lord Iddesleigh. It was his pleasure that they should go. A Liberal lord or two of Mr. Goschen's type of Liberalism must be brought in to keep that bashful statesman- as we all know him to be-in countenance. In the case In the case of Lord Cross this mattered little; he ran screaming to the Queen as a child who has lost his toy runs screaming to his mamma. And the Queen would not let her poor Crossie be injured. No, indeed! With the case of Lord Iddesleigh it was, alas! how different.

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And here we wish to proceed most guardedly. We wish not to grieve even the memory of that gentle nobleman by uttering fierce recriminations, and saying what his own sweet spirit would have borne in silence. Two months we paid in THE DEMOCRAT the highest compliment we could to his honour and worth. His death will be avenged by all the noblest sentiment of Britain. When we remember that while his corpse lay cold the Conservatives of Plymouth, in the very midst of his own loved Devonshire valleys, danced and jested, while one of the leaders of the Conservative party uttered feeble and foolish jocularities, we understand how little the party was worthy of the man. He who had the very finest feelings of them all was treated as if he were a callous scrambler for office. He who was the soul of honour was hustled aside because they knew that he was too noble for revenge. He whose only thought was kind and gentle was dismissed from office as a feeling man would not dismiss a drunken groom. It broke his heart, and that was all. He himself, with saintly generosity, forgave Lord Salisbury. May God forgive him.

There is no more dreadful thought than that

a crime has been done in vain. This crime was worse than vain. No one would join a C'abinet'

against which the stars seemed to be fighting in their course. They all, with one accord,

began to make excuse.

The result is a Cabinet of all the incapables. Never has so extraordinary a scratch lot been. got together. Most of them are foolish peers and the foolish relations of these. The leader of the House of Commons is Mr. Smith, a man whom his party has been seeking vainly to banish to the Lords. As to the others, the pot-house politicians are almost at their wits' end to find out who is Mr. This or Lord That. The Cabinet contains only two men of ability. Of these the most distrusted man in Britain would be Lord Salisbury were it not for Mr. Goschen-or Mr Goschen, if it were not for Lord Salisbury.

And what will come of it? We consider the conjunction of Lord Salisbury and Mr. Goschen as of baleful omen. Lord Salisbury is not the man to trust with a candle in the powder magazine of Europe, and Mr. Goschen is just the man, as national storekeeper, to give him as many candles as he wants. Strangely enough, our consolation is in Lord Randolph Churchill. He is sure to fly in Mr. Goschen's face. Next session daggers and dynamite will be spoken in the House of Commons. And probably before Lord Salisbury has had time to do his usual amount of injury to the country, we will have a general election that will sweep him and his to their natural place as a snarling Opposition.

From all this has the Democracy learned anything Yea; it has learned much. In these pitiful politics it has constantly witnessed the incapacity, feebleness, and folly of an aristocratic Government. The workshops of Britain are talking of nothing else. By-andby they will talk of the remedy.

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NEITHER PAY NOR GO.-British Prime Minister, Plan of Campaign against landlordism with Salisbury, has furnished the workers of the Irish material for an excellent motto. Speaking recently on the land question, his lordship summed up his policy by declaring that the Irish farmers "must either pay or go.' John Dillon has transformed this insolent ultimatum into capital shape for In a speech adoption as a Campaign war-cry. in Dublin Mr. Dillon, noticing the Salisbury dictum, some days ago at a meeting of the National League said: "His ultimatum is, You must either pay or you must go. On behalf of the Irish tenants I will say that I am convinced that the tenant farmers in Ireland intend this time neither to pay nor to go." It is the right answer to the insolence of the landlord claim, and we hope it will be backed up by the right sort of action. The policy of "neither pay nor go" vigorously put into operation in Ireland would quickly bring the plunderers to their knees in real carnest.—Irish World.

LAND PURCHASE.

Even "practical politicians" are now beginning to question whether it is desirable for the State to incur enormous responsibilities in order to get rid of one set of landlords and create another class of owners. So far as the State is concerned, land purchase is a case of "heads you win, tails I lose." If, after the purchase is completed, land values fall, the State, which has guaranteed the landlords, must lose. If land rises in value, many of the tenants will realise their unearned increment, and retire into idle life. Whether it rises or falls in value, land will soon and largely come into the hands of capitalistic owners, and all experience has shown that no landlords are so exacting and oppressive as those who purchase the power to impose a charge upon other people's industry.

It might be worth while to make some sacrifice, or to incur some risk, in order to obtain the control of the situation, and to place the land question on a permanent and satisfactory footing, but this will not result from buying of landlords and selling to tenants. In such a transaction there is no protection against a repetition of the evils from which we now suffer. The relief would be but temporary, and it would be undertaken at enormous risk to the State.

When such an operation is once commenced it would be impossible to limit its scope. Mr. Gladstone nominally reduced the first amount to be provided under the Irish Land Purchase Act from 120 millions to 50 millions, but the principle of the measure was that land must be bought from all landlords who wish to sell, as all must be treated alike. Of course, on the terms proposed all, or nearly all, would wish to sell, and not less than 200 millions would provide for the purchase as proposed. Moreover, what may be given to Irish landlords cannot easily be withheld from Scotch and English land owners, and thus the people in the coming land war would be hampered with a burden and a precedent which would weigh them down in the conflict.

There are some important considerations respecting land purchase which do not seem to have been regarded by its advocates. There is no denying the fact that landowners receive payment for which they do nothing in return. The value for which they receive rent is created, not by their own industry, but by the industry of others, as industry is the only means by which value can be created. It has

been well and truly said that "the man who buys land pays someone who has done nothing for the power to charge someone who is going to do something." When men concentrate on a given spot, their industry gives an enormous value to land. This will perhaps be best illustrated by a specific case. Thirty years ago land at Enfield was worth £50 to £100 per acre. The Government decided to erect there a small-arms manufactory, which has raised the value to something like £2,000 per acre, or thirtyfold.

The landlord is allowed to take all this increased value without contributing a farthing to the heavy rates occasioned by the necessary expenditure for drainage, lighting, road-making, and poor-rate. All these costs are imposed upon the industrious builder and occupier. The landlord goes scot free, and either takes away his two thousand pounds at once for an acre of land, or gets a hundred a year in perpetuity, upon which he pays no taxation whatever except the income tax. In a similar manner all land values have been created, and whether the landlord gets 10s. per acre for agricultural land, or £100 per acre for suburban land, or thirty or forty thousand pounds per acre per annum for City land, the value arose in the same manner, and is alike exempted from rates, the expenditure of which increases the value of the property.

If the case stood solely on its merits it is not reasonable to suppose that we should much longer exempt this class of income from taxation, and to buy up the income of landlords at so many years' purchase before proper taxation is imposed upon it would be manifestly absurd. But we have before us the report of a Royal Commission, presided over by the Prince of Wales, which recommends taxation on building land to a degree which would absorb a fourth part of the income for State purposes. If such a Commission as that which sat on the Dwellings of the Poor, composed almost wholly of landlords, makes such a recommendation, what may we expect when working-men and men of industry come to have their fair share in Parliamentary legislation? For the nation to purchase land under present conditions would be as unwise as for a man to give a price equal to freehold for a leasehold house on which there is only a few years, or, perhaps, a few months, to run.

What has happened with regard to tithe rent charge should be a warning to us in the matter of buying land. A few years ago tithe rent charge

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realised twenty-seven years' purchase, but since the discussion of the subject and the commence. ment of the tithe war it is difficult to obtain eighteen years' purchase for tithe rent charge. The adoption of the "Plan of Campaign" has taken off a large percentage from the value of land, both in town and country, throughout the kingdom. If the Plan be illegal it is so only because the right of combination which it has been found right and necessary to give to working men is denied to tenants, but this denial cannot long continue. Whether it is granted or denied men will avail themselves of the Plan of Campaign to resent unjust demands on the part of landlords, and thus the power, prestige, and profits of landlords will be largely diminished.

There is a peculiar incongruity in the contention that Irish landlords must be bought out before the question of Irish government can be settled. The most enthusiastic admirers of Irish landlords will hardly contend that Ireland is under obligations to them for having carried off from that poverty-stricken country four hundred millions sterling during the last fifty years. It is not necessary for my present purpose to refer in detail to the history of Irish landlordism. I will inquire now what have landlords done for Ireland to entitle them to such special consideration? No advocate for Irish landlords would ask the court of public opinion to look for a moment on a true statement of accounts, debtor and creditor, between the Irish landlord and the Irish people. No honest man can say that the amount, justly stated, leaves any balance to their credit. Why, then, are we asked to incur such tremendous obligations on their behalf? Why is their case regarded as exceptional? If it be assumed that the Irish local authority will act unjustly, why should it be supposed that they will act unjustly towards landlords in particular? Why should not butchers and bakers be protected by a British guarantee as well as landlords? Does not this special appeal on behalf of landlords indicate some doubt as to the soundness of their claims? No one demands any unusual protection for other classes of the community. Why should landlords ask for such a guarantee! No practical politician can wisely ignore the fact that a large number of persons who now form an important element in political forces deny the right of landlords to demand rent for land which neither they nor their predecessors have made or improved. It is not necessary or possible to delay the settlement of the Irish question until this topic has been fully discussed and settled; but it is well to bear in mind that any proposal for the purchase of land or

guarantee of payment by the Government must have the determined opposition of that large and increasing number of active politicians who deny the right of private property in land, whereas they would willingly assist in advancing any arrangement which made the cultivators permanent tenants subject to periodical and frequent valuation.

This method would under all considerations be the best. The object of legislation should be to make land as accessible as possible to workers, and especially to workers who are poor. Cultivators should not be required to come under heavy pecuniary obligations before they can have the use of land. Land is almost always rising or falling in value. If it falls the owner of mortgaged land is ruined; if it rises he gets payments, without effort of his own. In both cases he probably ceases to be a useful member of society. These fluctuations in value should fall upon the community by which they are usually created. The land system we want now is one which will give occupiers fixed holdings and fair rents. Whether these rents should be paid to the private owner or to the State is a question to be determined in future; but no course should be taken now which would make it impossibe to settle that question in future.

Instead of facilitating either the Irish or the British land question a proposal for land purchase would retard its settlement. The future value of land is eminently uncertain, and under all circumstances Mr. Jesse Collings will find it difficult to get local authorities to incur liabilities for the purchase of land. The settlement which he desires and which is so eminently essential to our property can be far better attained and will be far easier of attainment, under a proposal to give to local authorities, properly constituted, full power to consider the wants of the people and to demand of landlords reasonable attention to those wants upon terms which are just and fair. Whether for cultivation, or for building purposes, it is essential that industry should have free scope for its exercise without the interposition of private powers of obstruction, which are now practically used for levying blackmail.

The question of land purchase is seen to be tremendous the moment we consider the vast amounts of the interests involved. With agricultural rent, ground rent, mineral royalties, confiscation of buildings, and fines for renewal of leases, landlords realise at present about 150 millions per annum. Part of this vast sum is unjust and indefensible from any point of view. The whole of it should be subject to

taxation, the amount of which will be variously estimated at from 4s. to 20s. in the pound; but taxation to some extent no practical statesman can venture to ignore or deny. Under all the circumstances the opponents of land purchase have a strong case of which they are disposed to make effective use. Politicians, like torrents, should take the line of the least resistance, and the practical adjustment of the land question can be most easily and most advantageously settled, not by purchase, but by regulation.

The employment of State funds for the purchase of land inflicts a twofold injury upon

those whose interests it is the duty of Govern ments to protect. In such transactions the money of the people is taken from them in order to enhance against themselves the price of that which is essential to their existence. Before Mr. Gladstone announced his scheme for buying land, some Irish landlords were willing to sell at from seven to eight years' purchase, but when they were offered twenty years' purchase, of course they would no longer accept less. It seems to be almost inconceivably cruel to add to the burdens of the taxpayer in order to increase the charge upon the land occupier.

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If ever Mr. Gladstone be at fault he seems to fix his eye with just consideration upon his own defect. In his remarkable article on Locksley Hall and the Jubilec, he writes:"Each generation or age of men is under a twofold temptation; the one to overrate its own performances and prospects, the other to undervalue the time preceding or following its No man would be so readily pardoned as Mr. Gladstone for overrating the political work of the generation in which he has taken such a transcendant part, and no man is more willing to admit that legislation during that period has fallen far short of the practical necessities of the nation.

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So rapid is the march of events that a striking illustration of the inadequate character of that legislation to which he refers, with pardonable pride, has become manifest since the article was written.

Mr. Gladstone stated:-"Laws of combination and contract, which prevented the working population from obtaining the best price for their labour, have been repealed."

The limited action of this repeal is shown by the judgment given by Mr. Justice O'Brien in respect of the Plan of Campaign. He condemns the action of Mr. Dillon and his codefendants distinctly on the ground that the legislature, when giving the right of combination to workmen, did not extend the right to tenants. The injustice still remains, and all except working men may be held to have committed an illegal act if two or three persons unite in doing what it would be perfectly legal for one alone to do. Thus, while the justice of the principle of combination is admitted, its application is limited to one particular class of persons, all others are excluded, and overcharged tenants are left by the law to contend

single-handed with an unjust and oppressive landlord. It is evident that this limitation was not unintentional, and it furnishes an apt illustration of the fact that our landlord legislators watch the course of legislation with the utmost vigilance in order to make or turn a point in their own favour.

Mr. Gladstone claims "a verdict of acquittal upon the public performances of the halfcentury." This is a large claim to make, and the claimant would be the first to admit large qualifications. He goes on to say: "The question now touched upon is that condition of England question on which Mr. Carlyle thundered in our ears his not unwarrantable but menacing admonitions. Some heed, it would appear, has been given to such pleading. Science and legislation have been partners in a great work. There is no question now about the shares of their respective contributors. It is enough for my purpose that the work has been done, and that the legislature has laboured hard in it. Mr. Giffen, in a treatise of great care and ability, has estimated the improvement in the condition of the working population at 50 per cent."

We fully admit that "science and legislation have been partners in a great work," and we hold that in order to arrive at right conclusions it is essential to consider their respective contributions. We must not give to Westminster the credit due to Jermyn-street, or claim for legislation those advantages which have come from the application of science, the improved organisation of labour, and the increasing efforts of the industrious classes themselves.

Before our legislators can claim a verdict of acquittal they have a good deal to account for. How is it that during the last fifty years so large a number of persons in the United King

dom have perished of starvation? The proportion of sufferers to population is perhaps greater than that of any other country. Why is it that five millions of our people are constantly suffering from want of the commonest necessaries of life. This occurs where the development of wealth is the greatest ever known, and the productiveness of industry is without a parallel in the history of the world. Mr. Giffen claims an improvement of 50 per cent. in the condition of the working population. But during the same period the productiveness of labour has increased fivefold.*

Is it fair that the working man, the effectiveness of whose labour has increased 500 per cent. should benefit only to the extent of 50 per cent ?

The difficulty in awarding a verdict of acquittal on the public performances of the last half-century arises from the slowness with which proved abuses are considered and removed, and from the unjust manner in which new abuses are created. There were days of ignorance when politicians might have been excused for leaving, without remedy, evils which were scarcely within their knowledge. During the last fifty years a very different state of things has prevailed; knowledge has increased and ignorance can no longer be pleaded as an excuse for inaction. But interest is a greater foe to improvement than ignorance. Powerful combinations, interested in profiting by abuses, have steadfastly resisted with skilful, and often silent, obstruction those improvements which were necessary for the welfare of the people, and where changes have become inevitable and could no longer be resisted, they have been accompanied with conditions which limited their effect and placed still heavier burdens on the industrious classes. In his retrospect of the last fifty years Mr. Gladstone refers with satisfaction to the fact that "the beginning of the period had the solitary glory of ending one long series of continuous crime by the abolition of the slave trade." Unfortunately the abolition of slavery was marked by one of those acts of robbery through which the industrious classes of this country have been so often oppressed, and which i seems to be the special object of modern legislators to introduce in connection with popular movements. During the agitation for the abolition of slavery it was proposed that a loan of fifteen millions should be made to planters in order to enable them to tide over

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the transition. This proposal was by cunning manipulators, suddenly changed into a gift of twenty millions, and thus those who carried on and profited by the "continuous crime of slavery were not only allowed to escape punishment, but were paid enormous sums extracted from the pockets of people who had practised honest industry. What made the transaction still more disgraceful was the fact that the men who imposed this charge on the British public were almost wholly exempted from taxation; they did not at that time even pay income tax. The money was extracted from the people whose interests it was the duty of our legislators to protect, and unblushingly awarded to themselves and to their friends who had grown wealthy in carrying on this "continuous crime."

Precisely the same thing occurs in more recent legislation. Our new Chancellor of the Exchequer, as Chairman of the Telegraphs Committee, was the chief instrument in awarding to capitalists the many millions which were wasted in the purchase of the telegraphs. The amount paid was more than double the original estimate of cost, and the extravagance of the methods adopted are seen from the fact that one company received for a cable, which it was quite unnecessary to purchase at all, more than ten times the cost of its construction. We feel sure that nothing of this kind would have occurred in connection with Mr. Goschen's personal pecuniary transactions, yet it happens when he is acting for the public; and he is still lauded as an able financier who can be relied upon to administer the national finances.

Again, how are we to obtain a verdict of acquittal for the monstrous folly, to use no harsher term, connected with the recent arrangements for the Parcels Post, under which the Post Office do four-fifths of the work and get 45 per cent of the receipts, while the railway companies get 55 per cent. for doing onefifth of the work. In order to save some of the money thus unjustly lavished on railway companies, hard working postmen have additional duties imposed without any adequate increase of pay, and, in some cases, without any increase whatever. The absurdity of the existing arrangement will be obvious when we state that if the railway companies do all the work of collecting, transmitting, and delivering 14 lbs. on their own account, say, from London to the North of England, they are glad to receive 10d., but if they transmit only, and the Post Office do all the costly and troublesome work of collecting and delivering, then the fold. In the ease of shipping it has been found by investigatious railway companies are paid 1s. 1d. by the

It is not easy to measure the exact degree of increase in the effectiveness of labour; in some cases it has been more than five

made at Hull, that one man now obtains the same result as was obtained fifty years since by five and a half men.

Post Office

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