Зображення сторінки
PDF
ePub

have a chance to earn their bread and plenty of was very trying to the constitutions of Tory cheese and butter with their bread.

We are glad to note that the Land Nationalisation Society-under the presidency of Miss Helen Taylor-rejects all tinkering with the land question by the House of Lords, which tinkering is like giving a horse thief the charge and care of your horses.

members. But it has proved much more trying to their reputations. Where do Tory members pass their nights? is just at present the jest of London. Certainly they do not pass them at prayer meetings.

Russia is not going to join in such an unholy thing as the celebration of the French Revolution. Thank goodness. The "Holy Revolution" would be defiled by the participation of the

The coercion night of the House of Commons man who rules Russia.

:0:

WORKMEN'S

The industry of mankind is now five times as productive as it was fifty years ago, and if those who work consumed the produce of their labour working men and their families would have houses five times as large as at the beginning of Victoria's reign, with a corresponding increase in all the comforts and luxuries of life. Instead of this being the case millions of honest, hard-working people are destitute of the bare necessaries of life, and all who depend upon their own labour suffer hardships and privations which are in strange contrast to the luxury of those who live in idleness on the profits which accrue from employing and trading in the labour of others. Thus the blessings which Providence has showered on mankind are intercepted, and instead of general comfort we have intensified want, by the side of exaggerated and positively injurious abundance.

These results are not inevitable, neither are they the result of natural causes. They are the direct consequence of a breach of trust on the part of our rulers, who have governed the country for their own benefit instead of regarding the welfare of the community. But selfishness and injustice, like other forms of ambition,

oft

"O'erleap themselves and fall on t'other side." There are not wanting signs which indicate that privilege in favour of the classes has been strained almost to the breaking point, and that unless some relaxation takes place the bonds of society will burst it asunder, producing a simultaneous wave of freedom and destruction.

There are many persons who see that unjust legislation has produced disastrous results, and think to remedy the evils thus occasioned by

RIGHTS.

avoiding legislation in future, and leaving matters to take their course. This plan is impossible for two reasons; first, legislation is necessary to repeal and abrogate unjust laws, and, secondly, as human society becomes more dense it becomes more complex, the action of individuals affects others as well as themselves, and must therefore be controlled in the general interests.

If a couple of working people wanting shelter and food could go into an adjoining wood, cut down trees, build a house, and plant vegetables without let or hindrance, their course would be clear. This is the condition which prevails in new countries, but as population increases regulations become necessary. These regulations must be made by Governments, and they should be arranged in the interests of the whole community. They will be thus regulated so long as all take a part in the management of public affairs, but when from any cause only a portion of the people exercise political power from that moment legislation ceases to be just and equitable, and legislators regard the interests of themselves and their friends, and thus establish privileged classes who prey upon the rights and industry of the masses.

The constant effort of those in power is to obtain the services of their fellow men on the easiest terms. Labour is the means by which human desires are gratified, but labour and its results are transferable. One man may labour and another may enjoy the results. Human nature prefers living upon the results of other people's labour, and to satisfy this desire has been the usual object of physical and political warfare.

All former methods for appropriating the labour of others were clumsy and inefficient compared with those which are now in operation. Robbery and slavery were the rough and ready means by which the strong oppressed the weak, but these have been succeeded by arrangements which are infinitely more effective.

Robbery was self-destructive, because men ceased to produce when the produce of their labour was rudely snatched from their grasp. Slavery was specially ineffective because it afforded no sufficient stimulus to exertion, it also devolved upon the slave owner much responsibility and troublesome detail which by modern methods are completely avoided.

Power and Privilege now extract from the toiling masses all the surplus produce beyond the barest necessaries for the labourer as easily as cream is taken from a milk pan.

Amongst the modern extractors of wealth for the benefit of privileged classes the first place must be given to political power. Government is essential to mankind, and men will sacrifice much in order to have this necessary of life. Experience shows that there is no prosperity beyond the limits of political power, and seeing this the oppressed classes have striven for its possession, as the panacea for all their sufferings. This view is in the main correct, but political power must not only be possessed, it must also be used. It cannot be used without the exercise of a degree of skill and judgment which is only obtainable by practice, it will, therefore, take many years to realise the advantages which the possession of political rights is calculated to confer.

Those who have hitherto exercised the powers of government have displayed consummate ability in the maintenance of their own interests, and the enormous wealth which they have thus accumulated, and of which they keep possession, enables them to retain their unjust privileges as completely, but, perhaps, not so securely, as if household suffrage had never been adopted.

The souls of the working classes have been so bowed down by labour in consequence of unjust exactions that it will be long before they possess the requisite knowledge and intelligence to enable them to cope with their oppressors.

One of the chief objects which the ruling classes have ever kept in view is the necessity of maintaining the delusion that in extracting the produce of labour for their own benefit they are conferring an advantage upon the working classes. The working man who receives in exchange for his labour perhaps less than half of what he olight to be paid is taught

to believe that in paying anything at all his employer is conferring upon him a great obligation, and those who without working themselves benefit by industry, and live upon it, have the consummate assurance to declare constantly to the working classes that things would be much better if they did not come into the world in such numbers, and that the country would be greatly benefited by their absence.

Having secured the means of subsistence as completely as Joseph obtained for Pharaoh all the corn in Egypt, the subjugation of the working classes was an easy matter.

Surrounded by a starving crowd who must take their wages or perish, the privileged classes have no trouble in maintaining their position. They employ one portion of the starving people to compel obedience on the part of the remainder. But although the upper class employ the working classes as their agents in the subjugation of their fellow men they do not pay them. The 30,000 soldiers and policemen employed in Ireland to collect unjust rents are not paid by the landlords for whose benefit they are acting, but by the hard-worked people whose movements they control. Without the possession or exercise of more capacity than that which is necessary to enable them to receive rent the privileged classes maintain a supremacy which is the wonder of the world, and exercise their power in a manner which deserves universal execration.

Infinite pains has been taken to teach the people that this condition of affairs is right and necessary. Political economists with large

brains assure us that it is in accordance with the order of Nature, that whatever the industry of man produces from the earth beyond what is requisite for keeping the labourer alive should go to an idle person who, with mixed impiety and injustice, is called a landlord.

With Government, Land, and Capital at their command, nothing is wanting to complete the supremacy of the privileged classes; and thus it is that our aristocracy and our capitalists now obtain from the working people of Great Britain the proceeds of their labour far more completely, and on much easier terms, than the results of industry were ever obtained by robbers and slaveholders in ancient times.

Under these circumstances, the possession by the people of political power is purely nominal. Parliament is now controlled as absolutely by aristocrats and capitalists as in the period before the Reform Bill. Law, and the services of the lawyers, are solely at the disposal of wealth. Even intellect must live, and its possession is therefore dependent for its exercise

upon those who control the means of life. Thus our writers, artists, and thinkers pander to prevailing powers or perish. The poor cannot recompense them, and cannot, therefore, obtain their services.

The privileged classes contend, with consummate skill and unscrupulous effort, against the slightest modification of their unjust privileges; and the claims urged on their behalf in

the second Parliament elected under an extended suffrage are as extravagant as any previously advanced. We doubt whether any former Prime Minister would have had the effrontery to claim, as Lord Salisbury has claimed, on behalf of landlords, that their rents must be paid by the proceeds of taxation if the land does not yield sufficient, and the farmer's capital is exhausted.

thus we arrive at the fact that the enormous accumulations of wealth in the hands of a few, and the extreme poverty of the many, is not the result, as some imagine, of natural laws, but unjust legislation.

Our rulers have always taken the utmost pains to influence and control public opinion, -a task not difficult now, but one which was much easier in former times.

By this means curious and wholly unfounded claims have been built up in the name of Vestel Interests. Claims which are absolutely without foundation, but by means of which the public are robbed of many millions per annum. Under these false claims, no injustice can be paid to those who have benefited by the wrong. corrected without full "compensation" being The recognition of such a principle has enor doer knows that if he can commence a wrong mously stimulated fraud, because the wrongit will, under the claim for vested interests, be

made permanent; and he will probably derive

Even great national calamities are utilised by landlords as an excuse for shovelling the people's money into their own pockets. Mr. Disraeli's Government advanced money to landlords at one per cent, on the plea of enabling them to give employment, but no pre-than from its continuance. These claims are even more benefit by the abolition of a sinecure cautions were taken to prevent their exacting from tenants additional rent beyond the cost of the loan. Thus landlords, even men of the highest standing, obtained money from the public exchequer at one per cent., and charged five per cent. to their tenants for the improvements effected by the advance.

Whig Governments are not one whit behind the Tories in similar plans for the "conciliation of powerful interests" at the public expense. The introduction of the parcels post was made the occasion of presenting to the railway companies many thousands of pounds per annum beyond the amount to which they are reasonably entitled for the services they render, and of imposing upon postmen additional duties with little or no remuneration. Why was a bonus given to railway companies, and a burden imposed upon working men? The reason is obvious. The railway interest was at that time represented by a hundred and thirty members, and working men had two representatives in the House of Commons.

allowed only for the benefit of the classes: the the telegraphs were transferred to the Governmasses are carefully excluded therefrom. When ment the Act provided that all persons receiving over £70 per annum should be compensated. Those receiving less were left to take care of themselves.

out through all departments of the State, both This system of "compensation" is carried in the Civil Service and in the Army. Of late for the purpose of quickening promotion. An years it has been greatly extended, avowedly enormous number of officers have been retired on pensions, some of them commencing at 40 years of age, so as to make room in comfortable, snug, and often useless, offices for more of retiring pensions is carefully concealed by sons of the privileged classes. The total cost division amongst various departments, but it is stated to amount to not less than seven

millions

per annum.

Men thus receiving large payments at the traders and doctors with the rest of the comcost of the public enter into competition as munity. The chairman of the Auxiliary Army and Navy Store receives a retired pension of £600 a year from the Admiralty. It is not surprising that shopkeepers find it difficult to with establishments whose managers compete and they are taxed to support.

If such legislation occurs after the develop ment of the Borough franchise, what may we expect to find during the centuries which passed without any semblance of power on the part of the people? It is no exaggeration to say that legislation was then wholly in favour of the classes at the expense of the masses,

Railway companies are paid for the mere transmission of parcels from station to station, which is not one-fifth part of the work connected with parcels, 55 per cent, of the whole receipts.

By these means costliness and inefficiency in our public departments are abundantly secured. The object is to adapt them to the requirements of the privileged classes, who use

them as happy hunting grounds where all the game is driven into their bags. Offices of great dignity and emolument, practically without duties or responsibilities, must, therefore, be provided, and these we have in abundance.

Under this system, it is not surprising that the cost of Government in this country is nearly three times as much per head as in countries where the people govern themselves, neither is it any wonder that the ridiculous inefficiency of our departments becomes too often manifest. With a royal head to our Army we have for 16 years supplied our soldiers with tin cutlasses, and with a royal head to our Navy we send our ships to Cannes to meet the Queen. The only possible duty they could perform would be to fire salutes, and therefore they leave behind them the cannon intended for this purpose. When the ships are taken into battle the fighting guns will probably be left behind, and the saluting cannons will be fired.

No commercial firm would give the Duke of Cambridge or the Duke of Edinburgh five hun dred a year, or even allow them to be employed in any responsible position. We cannot continue to make birth, instead of merit, the standard of promotion, without bringing upon the nation early disaster, and ruin at no distant date

Of how much the working classes are robbed under the present system of Government expenditure it would be difficult to estimate. That 25 per cent. is thus worse than wasted would be a statement well within the facts. But figures do not give any adequate idea of the actual injury. The excessive cost is by no

means the largest of the evils which result from the adoption of privilege, instead of merit, as our standard. When patient and honest industry is left with starvation wages, and idleness and presumption encouraged by enormous salaries, the demoralising effect is beyond all calculation.

Let anyone call upon the heads of departments at their offices, and they will soon discover the truth and force of these observations. Not long since, it became necessary for a Member of the House of Commons to visit three departments, and in each case it was found that the chief knew little or nothing of the business, for the nominal superintendence of which he received an enormous salary. No answers, either on matters of fact or of policy, were obtainable except through the assistants. In one case the following significant circumstance arose. The object of the visit was to discuss claims raised by the working staff, and the assistant explained that the matter had been considered with the staff, until the clerks had assumed the right to discuss the matter on equal terms with their superiors. "Of course," he added, "this could not be allowed, and the discussion was discontinued."

Well! perhaps the insult was deserved. Working men will not be worthy to discuss with other Englishmen on "equal" terms if they allow the continuance of injustice which makes their own lives a burden, and inflicts suffering and starvation on those who ought to be dearer to them than themselves.

(To be Continued.)

-:0:

THE LAST COERCION KICK.

It is almost impossible at this present time to speak or write of any other matter than the Irish Question. It occupies the minds and fills the hearts of the British people. Nor is the interest of it confined to this country. America is thrilled by the struggle, in France it awakens generous sympathies, while countries more remote look on and marvel.

Observe how the London Press has changed its tactics. When Mr. Gladstone was in power the continent was swept for every sentence that condemned his policy. Obscure newspapers, that were as important to the great world as the three tailors of Tooley Street, suddenly found themselves described and quoted as European authorities. But now, when the world's Press

and the world's people have only one voice as regards the British policy in Ireland, and that voice speaks in condemnation and utter detestation, the Press is unquoted and the opinion expressed in public meetings is treated with a gibe and a sneer. In such manner is public opinion informed and led here in this land which boasts of its impartiality.

But all is vain. The tactics of the ostrich are always ridiculous. Britain persists in understanding the Irish Question, notwithstanding the heroic persistence of the Tory party and Mr. Chamberlain in throwing dust in her eyes.

Upon Friday, the 1st of April, there occurred a scene in the House of Commons for the

parallel of which we must go back far more than two centuries. When Charles I. demanded the five members and when Cromwell dissolved the Long Parliament they did not strike more fatal blows at the august authority of the House of Commons than the blow that has been struck by Mr. Speaker and Mr. Smith. When we think of the latter rising to propose that the Cloture should be applied to Mr. Gladstone and 250 members of the Opposition, we are struck by the thought of how feeble and foolish may be the actors in a scene of the profoundest historical meaning and interest.

Yes, we have now and for ever to face this fact. The will of the majority is henceforth the law of Parliament. The Speaker is only the tool of the majority, and more and more will he lose all independence until at last he becomes merely a partisan, a man speaking not the mind of the country, but the will of the party. Mr. Gladstone regards this degradation, this awful fall of the Chair from its impartial rights, as a national calamity far and away more dreadful than any Coercion Act that can be passed in Ireland. We share, to some degree, his gloomy anticipations. Already a thirst for vengeance has sprung up in those to whom the Cloture has been applied. They think of the day when they, too, will have the power to apply it. With Mr. Gladstone will disappear from the House of Commons its old methods and its old traditions. A partisan will follow a partisan in the Chair. Each side will, in its turn, oppress the other side, and fair debate will become a forgotten tradition. But, after all, does it so much matter? The House of Commons is only one means by which the people speak. If that fails them, they have other means. A Hyde Park demonstration is worth a dozen debates in Parliament.

have been accustomed to think that any method is good enough to hang an Irishman; but even these are obliged to bear unwilling witness to the fact that never was Ireland so profoundly peaceful.

Thus Lord Justice Fitzgibbon said at Meath, "There is an absence of serious crime throughout the county."

Judge Lawson said in King's County, "There are but five bills for the whole county, and none of these are of an important character."

Sir Michael Morris said at Westmeath, "Gentlemen of the Grand Jury, there is but one bill before you," and that was not found a true bill.

Judge Murphy in Roscommon congratulated the jury on the fewness and unimportance of the cases.

Judge Lawson in Sligo had only three bills, only one of which was important.

Judge Lawson in Galway was presented with the white gloves of a maiden assize.

Baron Dowse at Waterford had "no important cases."

Judge Andrews in Waterford City had only two cases for the jury, and these only of an ordinary character.

Baron Dowse said, in Tipperary, "The business of the assize is very light."

Baron Dowse had to congratulate Wicklow on being free from crime.

And so on right through Ireland-except, perhaps, where "Loyalty" casts its sanguine shadows over Ulster -- there is the same monotonous record of peace and quiet. Ireland is at present more free from serious crime than any other country in the world.

That does not matter. We are not going into this shameless business, into this brutal savagery of coercion, because of any fault in The debate which the Speaker brought so the Irish people, we are going to spill Irish prematurely to an end was marked by many blood because a landlord class, grown desperate things. Mr. Parnell took up the case against from the falling price of market products, are the Government. It is too weak an expression determined to accomplish in one blow the ruin to say that he answered Mr. Balfour. He of their tenants, and to drain Ireland like a simply made the Chief Secretary's arguments sucked orange before they are finally driven appear in all their native and ridiculous false- from the land to which, for hundreds of years, hood. But Mr. Balfour does not care. His they have been a burden and a disgrace. attitude in this matter is not unnatural if we represent him as saying "Here is my argument for the Bill. It is false and utterly ridiculous; but custom demands that I must use some argument, and one bad argument is worth any other bad argument. I am like the wolf in the fable-I depend on my teeth and not on my logic-and I have got a majority, and therefore I don't need to care for truth."

Mr. Balfour quoted the opinions of the Irish Judges. These men are ex-Crown lawyers who

The Acts of Parliament which are being revived, like the Whiteboy's Act, are of a marvellous barbarity. If they had been passed in Russia for the benefit of the natives of Poland they would have stirred the London Times to philippics about the rights of humanity, and the Daily Telegraph would have risen to the occasion to have called revolution to come from its hidden seats. But when it is only Ireland the case is different.

Poor Ireland has an eremy worse, more

« НазадПродовжити »