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cannot go back to what the law was and how it was placed ages back. I will concede, for argument's sake, that the land was improperly divested of its taxation, and in that way that it was improperly denationalised, but, granted all this for the sake of argument, you cannot get over the fact that, rightly or wrongly, the private property in land has been recognised by the law of the land, and has been sanctioned and confirmed by the tacit acquiescence of the people in the Acts of their ostensible representatives. Upon the faith of the law of the land, thousands of honest, hardworking men have invested the savings of years of toil in land, and it would be a monstrous act to make those innocent men beggars simply because those who have hitherto sanctioned the existing system now choose to cry out against it. You cannot with any justice separate land from other investments. If you want to confiscate, or to otherwise legally rob innocent holders of their land, you should do exactly the same thing with respect to consols and all other investments. Supposing two men to have worked all their lives and to have saved £1,000 each, which one had invested in land and the other had invested in consols, it would be a cruel and indefensible act to practically ruin the man who had bought land, while the other man retrieved his full property. The law even recognises the rights of the innocent holder of a bill of exchange improperly obtained from the acceptor. I oppose robbery, no matter how it is put forward. If it were a question of investigating the title to land, which is still in the hands of the descendants of the original grantee, I should be with you in your efforts to secure the return to the nation of such land, if it were proved to have been improperly granted, either for no consideration, or for an improper or immoral consideration. In such cases, however, I should require the land so returned to he immediately sold for the benefit of the nation. I object entirely to the nation holding land under any circumstances, except, of course, for public parks, &c. I do not know if you are aware of the fact that an enormous area of agricultural land is now out of cultivation, and that the sole cause of this is that no matter whether the harvest is bountiful or not, the price obtained for the produce will not pay cost of working. I don't think such a state of things would be improved by increased taxation of land. The low prices are caused almost solely by foreign competition, and many years back I foretold what would result, and proposed the following remedies:

1. Import duty on all foreign manufactures, taxing luxuries the highest.

2. Sliding scale of Income Tax.

3. Giving owners of uncultivated but productive land the option (a) of cultivating, (b) of letting for cultivation, (c) of paying to State a sum yearly, equivalent to value of produce of land if cultivated.

4. With the funds derived from the foregoing sources I should pay a bounty on their produce to the farmers.

I observe that now various persons are taking up the bounty scheme as their own child. 'Sic vos non vobis. However, I do not mind if good results. The land will soon come into tillage if its working

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is made profitable. Kindly forgive this very long letter. We are, I believe, in almost thorough unison on most points, and I wished to make it perfectly clear why I am compelled to differ from you in the vital point, which you appear to make your main principle. Thanking you for your kind courtesy,-I remain, dear sir, yours faithfully, ALBERT SOLOMONS."

Now, this letter of our correspondent is extremely interesting, because it brings forward, in a very complete manner, arguments that are being constantly, and far less ably, repeated.

(1.) The writer tells us that land is like other property, to take away other property is robbery, and therefore land restoration and robbery are the same thing.

As a matter of fact nothing could be more untrue. There are certain things in which private property can no more be recognised as a right than we can recognise the right to commit murder. We cannot recognise proprietary rights held by one man in another man, that is to say, we refuse to admit slavery. But if we hold the land upon which men must live we really hold the men; we are guilty of making and keeping men in slavery. Property, truly so called, originates in industry; but that is not the case with land. The landlord does nothing, but buys the right to charge other people for doing something.

(2.) Our correspondent pities the lot of small holders of land, if our ideas should be carried into effect, as every day makes probable they will be. Our correspondent has created a class of men out of his own imagination. The men of small fortunes who are interested in land would benefit by the change. At present they pay a proportion of taxation, which is absolutely crushing. From that taxation they would be relieved. The land tax upon their holdings would amount to less-in some cases to much less-than what they now pay.

(3.) With much of what our correspondent suggests we are not without sympathy. But will he show us how to do it? There is probably no such unsatisfactory tax as the Income-tax. It simply puts a premium on dishonesty. But while you can lie about an income you cannot lie about a bit of land.

A sea captain writes to us the following interesting letter:-"In your current number I see somebody has put in another word for mercantile Jack. Allow me to say a word for mercantile John, viz., the shipmaster. Thanks to the paternal and fostering care of the Board of Trade and Mercantile Marine, Jack is put on a much better footing than John, as, for instance, I to-day wished to send to a sailor's mother and a sailor's wife £10, but because I was John, instead of Jack, I was not permitted to send it by the Seaman's Money Order, in connection with Mercantile Marine Offices. I also wished to send 15s. to a sailor and was refused until I explained 'twas part of his wages. Now, a John is not considered a seaman. Take another case. A few years ago I lost a vessel; my crew saved all their clothes and one twentieth part of mine were saved, yet the whole of the crew were provided with passage and board until they reached England or some port where they could get employment. I had to pay my own way. Now, I quite fail to see what Jack

has done any more than John to have such a claim any more than any other individual working man. The Mercantile Marine is established solely on behalf of Jack, to see that his employers do not rob him, yet the shipmasters or John, if he has any question with his employers, must put into motion the most costly machinery of the law. As to the food Jack is supplied with, my experience of the past 25 years tells me that he is better fed, on the whole (although there are a few exceptions), than the labouring man or lower class of mechanics on shore."

While we think that mercantile Jack is nearly as badly treated as the human animal can be, we are quite aware of the troubles of mercantile John. Many owners treat their captains like dogs. After the captain of a sailing ship has run his vessel at a rate which makes it marvellous that she escapes wrecking, the owners grumble at him because they think that he might have been half a dozen hours earlier. Hundreds of ships and thousands of lives are lost by the merciless pressure put upon mercantile John. At the same time it will only be when mercantile John and mercantile Jack unite together and work with one purpose to one end that the evil will be cured.

"COVENTRY" writes:-" Huntsmen do me much harm. I have had nine acres of permanent seeds party destroyed, thirty-three gaps made in my fences, some large enough to drive a waggon through, and the live stuff trodden to pieces. £50 would not repay me this loзs. If anyone accidentally backs his conveyance into my fence, or otherwise damage it, he is usually willing to repair it; if not, I can get it put right and charge him with the amount. But the damage done by huntsmen is wilful, yet they object to pay for it, and when remonstrated with use language for which a poor man would be punished. I have made application to the master of the hounds, and applied to him repeatedly for compensation, but in vain. Can anyone suggest the course I should now adopt ?"

But

A CORRESPONDENT writes us from Leeds regarding the town clerk of that thriving town. He has a discontent. The poor man is only paid at the rate of £1,250 a year, and, naturally enough, he objects to a pittance so poor. It seems, however, that his assistant, who, if he is like the assistants of other town clerks, must have very hard and very constant work, does not get a fourth of that sum. while a town clerk always thinks himself underpaid, he always thinks his assistants overpaid. We dare not hope that Conservative Leeds will do justice to officials, but we might suggest to more Liberal towns, such as Glasgow, that they ought to look after their under servants, the over servants being so able to look after themselves. In London, also, we find that the highly-paid official of the School Board "asks for more;" but he does not tell us how much is paid to his subordinates.

A friend in Glin writes to us :

"I am afraid that it will be a very long time before things improve here, even with the assistnce of a Coercion Bill. The people have a tay

makfast only on Sundav because they cannot

afford such a treat every day. Some of the wealthy farmers-viz., those who pay their rent, have nothing but potatoes and sour milk for breakfast, and the same for dinner. The day we had mate (meat) has passed into a proverb. It is a sort of a chronological land mark, a red letter day."

H. HUTCHINSON, Derby. Many thanks for kind letter. We will carefully attend to your valuable suggestions.

J. NUTTHEAD SNELL. We cordially agree with much of what you say. The land wrong lies at the root of all other wrongs. When we take that away the great edifice of wrong will come tumbling down.

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THE discontent amongst agriculturists at the present system of tithe-paying is universal. It has even extended to Wiltshire, and the meeting held at Urchfont to protect against the exorbitant demands made, considering the depressed state of agriculture, is an indication of the way the wind is blowing. The agitation is not confined to any particular class, creed, or politics. It is only a matter for astonishment how long the farmers have continued to tolerate such a charge on the land without serious attempt to get it reduced.

WELCOME home, Lord Randolph Churchill, Prince of Confusion! you come to your native clement. All politics are reduced to one gigantic muddle. The topsy-turveydom of comic opera is the chronic state of the House of Commons. We pretend to coerce Ireland, and Ireland laughingly coerces us. Therefore welcome home. The charm is now complete.

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"At Die, a town of four thousand inhabitants, there are about 500 proprietors of land, the properties being of all sizes, from two and a-half acres upward, but generally small. The peasant labourers have been generally improving since the revolution in wealth, comfort, and intelligence. They ate black bread, and now they eat brown; they wore rags, and now everybody is decently clad. Their wages have doubled, while the price of corn has only risen one-fifth. The peasant proprietors are gradually becoming richer. A frugal and sober family in fifteen or twenty years generally manages to put past £600." - Dr. Ireland in "Studies of a Wandering Observer."

It was great pity, so it was,

That villanous saltpetre should be digged
Out of the bowels of the harmless earth,
Which many a good tall fellow had destroyed.

A Hint to Mr. Chamberlain.

It is good to be merry and wise,
It is good to be honest and true,
It is good to be off with the old love
Before you are on with the new.

His soul

Still sits at squat and peeps out from its hole.

It must be confessed that flattery comes mightily easy into one's mouth in the presence of royalty.

-Letters of Stephen Montague.

The landed interest of England is said to have received a sum exceeding the national revenue from railways alone over and above the market price of

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I've taught me other tongues-and in strange eyes Have made me not a stranger; to the mind Which is itself, no changes bring surprise;

Nor is it harsh to make, nor hard to find A country with --ay, or without mankind; Yet was I born where men are proud to be, Not without cause; and should I leave behind The inviolate island of the sage and free, And seek me out a home by a remoter sea. Perhaps I loved it well; and should I lay

My ashes in a soil which is not mine, My spirit shall resume it—if we may Unbodied choose a sanctuary.

Breathes there the man, with soul so dead, Who never to himself hath said,

This is my own, my native land! Whose heart hath ne'er within him burned, As home his footsteps he hath turned

From wandering on a foreign strand! If such there breathe, go, mark him well; For him no minstrel raptures swell; High though his titles, proud his name, Boundless his wealth as wish can claim; Despite those titles, power and pelf, The wretch concentred all in self Living, shall forfeit fair renown, And, doubly dying, shall go down To the vile dust from whence he sprung, Unwept, unhonoured, and unsung.

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A WORKMAN'S SECRET.

PART V.

:0:

It was of no use. All was tried that could be tried, but Robert Makinnon would not yield his secret. In his mild and philosophical nature was a firmness that often goes with such temperaments-like the coolness that tempers the Northern summer day. He was not altogether sure that he was right in withholding his secret from the world, yet, as long as he had doubts, he gave the benefit not to himself but against himself.

Yet he had become the frequent guest of Mr. Firebrace. The house had a mysterious influence for him. He would sit listening to Mr. Firebrace's brutalities-which he called views of life and men

and they would pass by him as unheeded as the dull walls of the houses he passed in his daily walks. His eyes and attention were all for Miss Firebrace.

Not

that he loved her. Man does not love a statue, in spite of classic legend, even although that statue live, move, and have human life in its marble veins. But these cold, quiet, listless women, with their noble grace and the wonder of their haughty eyes and glowing hair, have a strange fascination for many men. It is not love. It is, perhaps, no higher than curiosity and irritation. Given an inaccessible height and men will rush to climb it; given a region guarded by icy, death-dealing winds or fatal fevers that brood over scorching wildernesses, and to these the restless energy of thousands will be directed and the breathless attention of the whole world. So a woman who sits serene in a tower of pride and indifference provokes all the dormant energy of man. Robert Makinnon was one of the humblest of men, but this woman irritated and piqued him against her. Not that he thought of the matter in this or any other light. He only followed an all potent instinct. And she? Ah! I cannot follow the changes of a woman's mind, I cannot perceive their causes. Only

a woman can read a woman.

Yet she felt an interest in this man so far out of her own sphere. She felt truly that not only in social station, in manner of living, in all that makes up outer existence, were they apart. She understood dimly that the seen in life is paltry compared with the unseen. A great pride is not a bad teacher. And so she began to understand how the aristocracy of intellect may look upon the aristocracy of wealth as the mud beneath their feet.

"You may make a god of mud," she murmured, "you may set it on high and clothe it and gild it, but it is mud still."

While thus speaking to herself it was twilight, and she sat looking out upon a sweet spring sunset. She door opened, and her father entered, accompanied by was divided from the room by heavy curtains. The a man whom he often saw at home, and never at his office. This man was Mr. Jacob Ropeworthy, and he earned an honest living as a professional leader of the working classes. He had been a Radical, and might possibly be a Radical again, but at present he earned his bread and whisky from the Conservative party. He would get up agitations on the sugar bounty question; he would head deputations to the immoral Duke of Snuffleton, in which that true nobleman would be asked to defend the religion of his fathers from the attacks of low dissenters; he would organise a select band to interrupt Liberal meetings-in short, and was fully worthy of his reward. For the rest he manipulated public opinion with much dexterity, he was an oily rascal with a perpetual smile.

66

Now, Ropeworthy," said Mr. Firebrace, "let us come clearly and at once to the point."

of your straightforward principles."
"Yes, sir, I'm sure I like to deal with a gentleman

"Well, what have you done about Makinnon ?"
"Not much, I'm afraid."
"How's that?"

"Well, he's a sharp one, and he doesn't over and above like me. Our politics, you see, don't agree."

"Your what?" Even Mr. Firebrace could not repress his disgust at this scoundrel having the audacity to manage to get the secret out of him in this way. call his work politics. "But never mind, you won't I've tried." It was one of Mr. Firebrace's fixed ideas that no one could succeed where he had failed. "Well, sir, we must go to work another way." "What way?"

"Oh, that's my idea. I have got a secret, too.' "How much? ??

"Two hundred."

"Well, I don't mind. Bring the engine here, or a plan of it, and I will give you two hundred pounds. But how will you get it?"

"Oh, quite easily, sir. You see Makinnon lives in the top flat of a very quiet house. Well, every Monday night he gives a lecture to some young just walk upstairs with a wig on that nobody knows people, and his sister goes to hear him. Now, if I and open the door, which is as easy as anything when you know how, and take up the engine-I've heard where he keeps it-and walks downstairs with it it's too late?" quietly and comfortably, who'll be a bit the wiser till

Mr. Firebrace thought for a moment, and then he said, "Well, you can try, but if you fail mind you hold your tongue, or it'll be the worse for you. Now, come, and I'll give you some whisky."

As the two scoundrels left the room Miss Firebrace came from the window. She seemed to have lost her coldness and her languor, for her fine eyes were flashing.

"No," she said, "this will not be done if I can prevent it." (To be continued.)

"THEY HAVE RIGHTS WHO DARE MAINTAIN THEM."

VOL. IV.-No. 102.

Where are We?

MAY, 1887.

In a tight place. All the power of Parliament and of Government is in the hands of a Tory minority supported by a contingent of recreant Liberals. The people are thus betrayed into the hands of the aristocracy, who are using their temporary ascendency in remorselessly exacting impossible rents; carrying out sentences of death, in the form of eviction, and subverting the national liberties by a Coercion Bill which makes thought a crime. We are thus face to face with a crisis in which the people must exercise their power or sacrifice their liberty for ever. The only hope for a successful issue from the impending struggle is in the determination of the Irish people to maintain their rights by a passive but effectual resistance to injustice. The total suppression of liberty by the Government must be followed by a total suppression of rent by the people. The chief object of the Government is to exact rent, and this object must be defeated by the steady and universal determination on the part of the people not to remain the subjects and instruments of oppression. Hitherto the people, by paying rent for land which is their own, have supplied the aristocracy with the means of maintaining their unjust supremacy. Let the people keep the rents they have hitherto paid away for their own land, and spend the money in providing for their pressing necessities and the requirements of the national

cause.

Sport!

We sympathise with Yorkshire. It must be a trial to any district so energetic and so self-respecting to possess sportsmen of the kind that lately, at Meltham, made the very

PRICE TWOPence.

name of sport abhorrent. A selection from the hounds of two packs met to hunt a fox. The game of fox-hunting is in itself sufficiently ridiculous. To see horses, hounds, and God. created human beings dash madly after a poor, panting animal, little bigger than a cat, is at best a sorry sight. Here, however, the noble sportsmen found a fox that wouldn't be hunted. It simply sat still on the ground and looked at them. They whipped it, they kicked it, they cursed it, in short, they behaved generally like fools and brutes. Still the fox would not move. At last one of the boobies was seized with a brilliant idea. He put a string round the animal's neck and dragged it along the ground, until the poor brute, its flesh torn into ribbons, at last succumbed. That's your sport, gentlemen of England!

Miners.

Mr. Henry Matthews has given his time and intellect to solve the miners' question. We need hardly say whether he has, or has not, succeeded. The problem before him was the very old problem-to please everybody. And his success is equal to the success of those who before him have tried the same thing. It is a Bill to benefit miners. Therefore, of course, what the miners want they don't get, and most of what they get they don't want. They wished that boys under twelve should not go into the mines. Mr. Matthews thinks that the boy of ten is old enough to face the hardships of a miner's life. They wished that certain opportunities should be taken away from mine managers of practising petty spite. These opportunities are still left. They asked that the man who examines the safety lamp should

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