CORRESPONDENCE AND NOTES ON CORRESPONDENCE.

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A letter comes from Mrs. Josephine Butler testing against Mr. Acland's Vagrant Act Amendment Bill. We need not remind our readers that

Mrs. Butler's name is synonymous with the best and noblest enthusiasm of our time. We agree with her that the Bill gives a power to the police that the police-in London, at least-have not shown themselves worthy to possess and exercise. The power of arresting on suspicion would-it is as well known as that two and two make four-be rarely exercised against any one who could thrust a sovereign into the officer's hand, and it would be exercised with the most terrible severity upon any poor creature against whom any officer cherished for his own reasons-a dislike or spite.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE DEMOCRAT. "SIR,-I enclose for your perusal a Bill introduced in the House by Mr. Acland, which is of a very loose and dangerous character. You will allow me, as one who has worked for nearly twenty years against undue encroachments on the liberties of the citizen, and cn behalf of the daughters of the poor, to state what I think of this Bill. I have observed the system of Police

regulation of vice abroad, and I can state that one of the worst features of this is the raids made upon the populace from time to time by the Paris police. These raids result in the most horrible tyranny and injustice. The police are allowed to be judges of the motives of a crowd of persons assembled in any street or thoroughfare at any given time. They pounce upon the crowd, or upon persons in that crowd-it may be from personal or spiteful motives. Of course, they generally select the poor and most defenceless for arrest. So terrible have been the wrongs resulting from this system in Paris that several deputies and justminded public men have protested against them, and are endeavouring to put a stop to them. Now, if you will look at Clause 3 of Mr. Acland's Bill, you will see that it simply legalises the Parisian raids. There is, it is true, a certain safeguard in the fact that the initiative is to be taken by a group of citizens, and then the powers are simply handed over to the police. But it is very easy to get a group of citizens in any large district of London to sanction such a raid carelessly, be spitefully, or in a class spirit. When once they have sanctioned the action of the police, the police are at liberty to select, arrest, and " run in ad libitum. I do beg of your readers who may feel with me the dangers of this Bill to petition Parliament against it. I cannot believe that THE DEMOCRAT would approve of such a measure, which, though it may occasionally, under good management, result in taking up a wealthy vicious debauchee, is perfectly certain in the long run to be used as an instrument of terrorism against the poor, and especially the women of the poorer classes. You will observe, too, that it is to extend to the whole country. I do earnestly hope that the Bill will not pass the present Parliament, or any other.Yours faithfully,

or it

may

"JOSEPHINE E. BUTLER. "9, The Close, Winchester, April, 1887."

Mr. Joseph Sherrard, 20, Denmark-road, Camberwell, sends us a most interesting letter, in which he replies to the letter of Mr. Albert Solomons, published in our last issue.

Mr. Solomons objects entirely to land being held by the State for the people, except as public parks and other small uses. And his reason is that he thinks some poor man, living on a thousand pounds or less, would lose that and starve.

Of course nothing of the kind would happen. Democracy, in seeking to get back its own, would take more than good care that no one suffered any real loss. Purple and fine linen might have to go, but honest homespun would not lose a thread.

But, even if it were, as it is not, that poor men might have to suffer, then, Mr. Sherrard asks, with a fine burst of eloquence, Should they not be ready to suffer? He compares this fight to the storming threw down their lives; and if it were for the good of Plevna. There battalions rushed forward and of humanity, poor men would rush forward and throw down their lives. The sacrifice is not needed, Heaven be thanked. Democracy does not come to make the poor poorer.

the Ipswich Democratic Club, brings forward a subMr. William Arthur Andrews, Hon. Secretary of ject upon which all Democrats must feel the deepest cratic Union in London, with branches in the interest. He proposes the formation of a Democountry. Mr. Andrews has carefully and thoroughly developed his ideas.

Socialistic-for Socialism is repugnant to the ideas The society must be Democratic, but must not be and methods of British workmen.

On the other hand, it must be free from the trammels of "moderate Liberalism," which opposes such things as free education, payment of members, and land nationalisation.

that it can only be founded by Such a society is needed. and Mr. Andrews is right.

this work?

means of hard work, Mr. Andrews says Who are ready for We hope to hear more, and from In the meantime, many quarters, on the subject. we recommend to Mr. Andrews and others the English Land Restoration League.

Mr. S. Thomas sends us two letters, one an answer to Mr. Solomons' letter of last month, which we print elsewhere; the other a criticism of the efforts that are being made to stop the Sunday delivery of letters. In regard to the latter, we feel strongly that the way to honour the Sunday is not to abolish Sunday comforts and conveniences. When the good people who advocate Sunday severities eat cold dinners, permit their servants to do no work, and keep their horses locked in the stables from Saturday night to Monday morning, then we will consider their demand that the postMr. men should not deliver Sunday letters. Thomas points out that two things would happen by the stoppage of the Sunday post-the poor man would not get his letters, and the poor postman would only get six days' pay instead of seven. We believe in having as little Sunday toil as possible, but we also believe in studying the convenience of the people.

Lieutenant-Colonel Philip Dickson, of 25, Lansdowne-road, Bedford, brings under our notice a

very grave accusation of injustice against the military authorities, who have forced him to retire upon half-pay. The charge is the more grave because it comes at a time when our whole military and naval system is the object of public suspicion, as being controlled by corrupt and occult influences, against which too loud or too frequent protest cannot be made.

The facts of the case are as follows:

Colonel Dickson committed what may or may not be an indefensible act in giving the soldiers of his regiment an allowance-the Colonial allowance -and which was given to others, although denied

to him.

An attempt was made to prove that he was medically unfit for service, which he met by producing the evidence of high-class medical men. The whole question is rather old; but no injustice is too old to be set right.

A working man from Hants, who, as he himself puts it, has lived sixty years among the agricultural labourers, sends us a letter in answer to the letter of Mr. Solomons. We regret that the length of the letter and the limits of our space prevent us from giving it. He asks Mr. Solomons to think, to try to realise all that the labourer suffers because the landlord can do as he pleases with the landwith that without which man can live no more than he can live without air. The man who steals the land steals from others the means of life; the man who buys from the man who stole does not buy inanimate acres but living human beings.

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Our correspondent, in a private note which accompanies his letter, complains bitterly of the persecution of the Primrose Dames. Men hunted and hounded out of their means of livelihood by women of title, some of them no better than they should be, because the poor fellows will not perjure their souls by voting for the man they think the wrong man. We hope that English boycotting will be met by boycotting. If a duchess boycots a neighbourhood, then the neighbourhood should at once consider how best and safest to have its revenge on the duchess,"

THE JUBILEE ROT.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE Democrat. SIR,-We are asked to be thankful because Victoria Guelph has reigned over us for half a century. If we examine the virtues and talents of this family since George I., we shall not find much to rejoice over.

Let us pass over the arbitrary spirit of George I., who never even learned to speak English: the avarice and corruption of George II., and the grossness of their sensuality, which equalled that of Charles II., to inquire how their posterity have done credit to their exalted station.

It was through the ignorance and obstinacy of George III., who sank into drivelling idiocy, that we lost the United States. The Duke of Gloucester, his nephew, was known as "Silly Billy," and his son, the Duke of Cambridge, made himself remarkable even among the very silly dukes who at that time took the bread out of the clown's mouth and spoiled the pantomime. He even called in question the existence of the potato disease and the impending famine in Ireland, "because he always found the potatoes at his own table very good." The Duke of York was deprived of the chief command of the army on account of his corrupt practices, which were brought to light through the exertions of the Duke of Kent, who hoped to step into his shoes by exposing a brother's infamy.

George IV. was a bloated mass of moral and physical corruption. He was a "hoary Hal" without his courage, wit, or generosity. Of the many incidents of his private life, not the least disgraceful was his being turned off the turf by the Jockey Club for cheating.

William IV. left Mrs. Jordan, the actress, the mother of his children, to die in positive destitution, though he had formerly been in the habit of waiting at the door of the theatre to receive her salary.

The Duke of Sussex married Lady Augusta Murray, and then abandoned his wife and children, in pretended deference to a law made after the event, which declared invalid all marriages contracted by members of the Royal Family without the Sovereign's consent. But this did not prevent him from afterwards marrying Lady Cecilia Buggins. Lady Murray was taken no notice of by the Court, but Lady Buggins was received, and, after his death, created Duchess of Inverness by the present Queen.

It is not, therefore, on the plea of having served the State by its virtues or its talents that the House of Hanover can ask us to rejoice. Indeed, the most plausible reason it can plead in support of its claim to the continuance of the national bounty is the fact of having so long enjoyed it. But this is an argument that might be pleaded with equal justice in favour of the rats who for several generations have bred unmolested in a farmer's barn, and lived upon his corn.

The Guelphic breed has been enriched by a cross of the Coburgs, for which John Bull has had to pay the piper.

When Prince Albert first came from Germany, it is said that attempts were made to change the

uniform of the British army; and that private meets were ordered with the Royal stag hounds, because he had been laughed at by the field for want of pluck in riding at his fences. But when he found that England was not Saxe-CoburgGotha, he meekly resigned himself to the perpetration of the celebrated Albert tom-fool hat; to the encouragement of animal obesity, by breeding fat porkers, for which he obtained prizes at the cattle shows; and to pattering after a quiet set of harriers, safe and slow. But complain not of his want of spirit; for when he did pluck a spirit up it was only to squabble with the parish officers about the rating of Windsor farm, on which he bred fat cattle, contending that he did not occupy it beneficially, an allegation which was in this sense of the word undeniable, for it would have been more beneficially occupied if the parish poor had been settled upon it, and Prince Albert located in the Union. Both were equally dependent upon public charity, with this sole distinction, that many of the Union paupers had at some time or other contributed to the burdens of the State, whilst the Consort pauper was a burden to the country from the time he set his foot in it.

Some people may attempt to argue that, as the country has prospered under the Guelphs, their rule must by some means or other have conduced to it. But the House of Hanover has had nothing to do with the growing prosperity of the kingdom. At any rate, neither their virtues nor their talents have rendered them indispensable to the country. In this respect, indeed, it would have been difficult to have gone further and fared worse.

Often have I noticed the career of the shopkeeper to be as follows. When a private house is first converted into a shop-mark, as a private house it has paid good interest-the rent is at once put up. Still, it may be worth the extra for business purposes, I freely admit. Then unless a man can secure a lease, which is seldom, and is willing to do so without a reasonable trial of his venture, I find almost invariably his rent is risen from time to time, until the rent takes so great a share of his profits that he finds he is working for rent and taxes. He may grumble, and though by grumbling, not without cause, doubtless the country tenant occasionally gets an abatement of rent, I never yet knew a town landlord abate one jot or tittle to an existent occupier or current tenant. Why? Because the town-landlord knows full well the shopkeeper's fixtures are there, his

First, the fixtures are little value to remove, being made for the shop to fit and the value mostly in the fixing therein. The connection may be the toil of years and the stock bought as suitable for the locality.

Landlords preach that it is freedom of contract. Landlords would not relish freedom of contract that laid such a tax upon their income as to reduce them to a terrible struggle to live or have to clear out and lose all.

Business people must be in the limited area of central town property to make any turnover at all, and I am sorry to see daily respectable townspeople going down amongst the unemployed. Gradually are we becoming the rich richer, the middle and lower classes poorer. Indeed, I say it without fear of contradiction, the middle classes are rapidly and surely falling out, and the result of that will be simple repetition of history-revolution, anarchy, and confusion.

Our ground landlords have not been re-assessed since A.D. 1692 for the land tax; therefore, as they are so careful-I mean our ground owning lawmakers-of their own interests as to escape re-assessments, why should they be allowed to re-assess in the shape of improved rentals until the tradesman, the worker, is compelled to sell or walk out to suit the landlord's greed in his ease and affluence?

If a tradesman seeks a lower rental his removal loses his connection, and it is by no means an unusual thing for the landlord to advertise the shop as suitable for the trade of the departed tenant, thereby giving a plum to a succeeding tenant to keep up his rent at the expense of the one he has done to death, in a business point of view. Well may we quote "Man's inhumanity to his fellow man is the death of thousands." A

gentleman, high in the medical profession, assures me the struggle for life and decent position by the lower and middle classes is likely to have the most terrible effects upon the rising future generation, for we are all now 66 men of sorrow and acquainted with grief," and for what? That the rich may become richer and amass money they will not circulate, but hoard up or invest in limited liability companies and general stores to compete with and ruin their own tenants--the shopkeepers.

The town landlords will only have themselves to blame if they do not in time read the handwriting on the wall and realise the growing conviction that it will be better for one slothful landlord to drop down amongst the unemployed and starving than half a dozen hard-working tradesmen, on the principles that the good of the majority is the foundation of equitable laws.

Thanking you in anticipation,-I am, Sir, yours obediently,

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JOHN BANKS.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE DEMOCRAT. SIR, I have just seen a copy of your publication, in which "Coventry" asks if he has a remedy

Democracy, Socialism are names at which the generality of Christian people stand aghast; and to keep at the utmost distance from the combinations intended they deem essential to their religious life. One evil effect of this feeling is, that they who adopt the sentiments thus denominated are hasty in concluding that Christian teaching is opposed to them; and become, in reality, what Christians represent them, sceptics. I am quite convinced that this antagonism between Christian teaching and the true principles of Democracy-or if you choose to call it by another name-is not real. Movements affecting the social, and political, and moral condition of the people are within our knowledge, which were viewed as very dangerous, and they put in a state of antagonism Christian teaching and the new move; but the right triumphed, and men now wonder they were so long in seeing the true. So will it be with the movement contemplated. Many Christian men and Christian teachers see eye to eye with you; and, by-and-bye, they will have courage to avow it, or, when success has crowned your efforts, they will hasten to say they have long been of your mind.

In the meantime, let all who hate tyranny and oppression, either in high or low places, gain clear views of the right mode of dealing with the evil. Use all possible efforts to keep impetuous spirits composed in their indignation. And bear in mind that the oppressed Author of our Divine religion

will ever be on the side of TRUTH and JUSTICE and PURITY and LIBERTY.

It would be easy to sustain these views from the words and acts of the Great Teacher, but I admire your liking for short articles, and am, Yours truly, TRUTH IN LOVE.

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FIRST PRINCIPLES.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE DEMOCRAT. SIR, My fellow-workmen erroneously fancy that if a man buys an estate of 500 acres, he buys the land, but it is not so; he cannot buy the land either by natural or English law. He simply

acquires a right to stand in the shoes of the original grantee and accepts the responsibilities. He buys merely an estate. That meant originally a Government situation, and, by way of remunerating his services as a Government officer, the State permitted him to use the 500 acres. If he proved

a bad servant, the State could dismiss him, and grant the 500 acres to a better man. Therefore, resumption was a plain business-like procedure, similar to a merchant dismissing an inefficient clerk and giving the salary to another. But what merchant would pay one clerk to live idle and another to do the duty? Yet this is what the landless masses, who form the chief body in the State, are actually doing in allowing landlordism to enjoy the land, and in taxing industry to pay other servants to do the work that landlordism neglects.

It is clear enough to any who will take the trouble to look into it that, if we pay land-rent and ground-rent, we ought not to pay rates and taxes while those rents last, that landlord law was designed to rob us legally, and that we should now make law ourselves to reverse the robbery. Educate ! educate!! educate!!! Ignorance is our greatest enemy! JOHN WHEELWRIGHT.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE DEMOCRAT. SIR,-Your correspondent, J. W., said that Magna Charta provided that the farmer should pay landlordism no more rent than landlordism paid the State for the same land, and, carrying out a former promise, I beg to bring the original clause under your notice, viz. :—

"Omnes autem istas consuctustines et libertates quas Rex concessit Regno tenendas quantum ad se pertinet erga suos, omnes de Regno tam clerici quam laici observabunt quantam ad se pertinet erga suos." That is to say:-All customs and privileges which the King grants to the State's tenants, they in turn, both clergy and laity, shall grant to their tenants.

Working men know by this time that land in England is held of the king as representing the people or State. Every landholder, excepting the king, is only a tenant. So, familiarly speaking, the king was the landlord of the baron, who was the landlord of the farmer, who, by the above clause, has as much right to hold his land rent free as his landlord has.

Since Poyning's law enacted that what held good for England should hold good for Ireland, it follows, if landlordism pays no rent to the State, the National League has a constitutional right to issue a no rent manifesto," and would then simply be following the example landlordism had

set.