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LETTER FROM THE CHILDREN'S

DEMOCRAT.

MY DEAR CHILDREN,-In our last letter we said that the world could be made richer, not only by making new things; it can be made richer by taking things from places where they are of no use to places where they are of use, and by exchanging different sorts of things between one person and

another.

Suppose that a boy has nothing but cabbage for his school dinner (I have heard of such a thing), and another boy has nothing but potatoes. If the first boy gives the other a little cabbage for a little potato, each of the boys, I should say, would be better off, richer, than he was before.

Suppose the school committee or school board should make a rule that every boy who did such a thing should have to pay something extra every time towards the school expenses. This would tend to make all the children in the school worse off than they were before. They would have less means and less opportunity of getting what they liked.

There may be a village situated on land not suitable for raising potatoes, and there may be some man who brings potatoes to this village for sale. But if they tell him that for every peck of potatoes that he brings he must subscribe so much towards the parish expenses, he will either set a higher price on his potatoes, or he will not bring them at all.

But some persons may say that neither the school nor the village will be the worse off for these rules, because the payments will go towards the school or the village expenses. But I think they will be worse off. Industry, and sense, and good management will be discouraged. Besides, it is possible that such rules will prevent potatoes and cabbage from being bought and sold or exchanged at all, and in this case the people will be deprived of what they like, and the school and village finances be no better off than before; worse off in the end, because the less persons can suit themselves, the less they will be able to contribute towards school and parish expenses.

However, such things as we have been supposing are not done with respect to schools and villages, but they are done with respect to countries. There are certain goods which are not allowed to be brought into certain countries without making payments, called duties, to the Governments of these countries. Let us see how this is likely to

work.

There are countries in which a very large quantity of sugar can be raised and manufactured, and there are countries which can produce a very large amount of cheese. Now, if the Governments of the cheese parts of the world say that no sugar shall be brought into their countries without paying duty, the consequence will be that sugar will be so much the dearer in the cheese countries, and the consequence of that will be that there will be less used, less bought, and less brought in. The

people will be deprived of what they might have had. Then, it is very likely that the people of the sugar countries will say, "If you can't buy more of our sugar, we can't afford to buy so much of your cheese." Thus the cheesemakers will have their cheese standing on hand, and will say, "What are we to do with it all? People in both sorts of country will be short of what they want, and at the same time there will be too much in both men will talk of overcountries. And some production; and it will be over-production-too much made.

You know if your mother cooked for you only one dinner a week, it would be over-production if she kept all your mouths locked up.

But the expenses of Government are met partly by the payment of these duties, and they must be met in some way. Yes; but the less the Government interferes with men doing the best they can for themselves, the more they will be able to contribute towards the expenses of Government. At the same time, there will be less trouble and expense in governing, because thriving businesses of themselves keep people in order; so that the Government would need less money, and would be able to get more.

I think it is a pity that Governments should try to get money by preventing property from being made more valuable. Exchanges do make things more valuable. If I raise more fruit than I can eat, and another man raises more eggs than he can eat, we both gain by exchanging with each other. To Most likely I should sell my fruit, and he would sell be sure, things are not often managed in this way. his eggs, but in the end this would come to the same thing. And this is what I particularly want you to understand, that buying and selling is a sort of exchanging all round, and everybody ought to be the better for it.

It is waste to interfere with profitable transactions; I mean transactions profitable to all parties engaged in them. I should like you to study this subject, and to consider, when you pay for things at the shops, how much of the price belongs to the expense of raising the article and of bringing it to the place where it is wanted, and how much to the charge that is made upon it by Government. About this time of the year, a new Budget, as they call it, is brought out, to say what duties and taxes the Government think had better be paid upon this and upon that. You are, many of you, old enough to take an interest in such matters, and to judge to some extent whether the new Budget does as little harm es possible.

But THE DEMOCRAT has in its head an

altogether different way of getting money for the Goverment. I will describe this in my next letter.

I said I would tell you what you children could do to put down waste. One great rule is this: When you work, if you can choose, let it be for some one who works himself, or else for some one who can't work. Because, if you work for the idle, your work goes to no good, and is wasted.

Your affectionate

DEMOCRAT.

A WORKMAN'S SECRET. PART VI.

Robert Makinnon walked very slowly, and with his head bent to the ground. It was one of those afternoons that press heavier than lead on a sunshine spirit. There are days of malign influence, just as there are men whose spirituality affects and depresses our own. To meet some men, to live through some days, is a struggle and a trial. All the light, and love, and laughter seem at their touch to fade away from life. All above, around, beneath us is deathly and ashen with dreariness and desolation. These are the things that try what stuff men are made of. Every thing whispers despair. Why should we toil, why be great, why seek after nobleness? Let us eat, let us drink, let us die.

Robert Makinnon started at the train of thought and its ending that had gone over his soul. He found himself thinking of death as a cool stream, where flows the waters of Nepenthe; and of life as a dusky bank, from which it is only wisdom to leap.

Startled and shocked, he hurried on as if to escape from some darker self that kept whispering in his ear. He did not notice that a tall and graceful woman was following him; now hurrying, as if urged by some sudden impulse; now almost halting, as if a still had fallen upon her resolution.

At last Makinnon reached home, and at the touch of his sister's cool, soft hand, and at the sound of her voice's calm music, his soul grew quiet. There is a something in woman-a loftiness, a calmness, a clearness and steadiness of faith-that is to man a haven and a heaven of refuge. A fervid and poetic nature needs such an influence as a sun-parched land needs the breeze that comes like an incense from the sea, when, one by one, the stars come to keep their angel watch. The loving tendance of mother, sister, wife, is soul-soothing as the sound of holy bells.

And so Makinnon sat wearily down, and his sister's quiet talk played coolly on his soul.

He only half heard, as one hears in a dream, a gentle knocking at the outer door. But Katie, quick, bright, alert, heard it, and rushed to open, perhaps half expecting to see behind the solid oak a certain blushing and stammering probationer of the Kirk of Scotland.

Katie started a little at seeing before her a tall and elegant girl, hardly older than herself. For a moment she was too astonished to speak, and then she said— "Miss Firebrace!"

Miss Firebrace, at the sound of her name, blushed slightly, as if that sound called back to her all she was and that vast responsibility to society which is called convention. But soon she suppressed, or seemed to suppress, her emotion, as she said, in a tone that was almost constrained and harsh

Yes; that is my name. I want to speak to you, if you are Miss Makinnon."

"I am she. Will you come in?"

Miss Firebrace bowed like a queen, and Katie showed her into the room where her brother was seated, looking dreamily into the fire-for these were poor folk, look you, without half-a-dozen apartments into which a stranger can be put.

The sight of Makinnon was evidently unexpected by Miss Firebrace. She had hoped to have said all she wished to his sister, and to have been gone before he returned from his daily work at the foundry, where he was at present engaged drawing the plan of a ship's engine.

Again the flush deepened on Miss Firebrace's cheek. Her task had become very hard. Nor was it less when with a grave and ceremonious courtesy, belonging by very birthright to those of Celtic blood, Makinnon did not allow to appear on his face one glance of surprise, but placed a chair for her as respectfully as if she were an expected princess.

But Miss Firebrace had great coolness and self. command. Long and bitter training-the training which comes to a woman when she belongs to a newlyenriched family struggling for that vainest of vain things, social position-came to her aid.

She saw, with all the quickness and clearness of a woman's mind, that she must tell him everything. To his sister she would only have said that she had heard of a plot to do her brother injury, and then went her way careless, or trying to feel careless, as to what he thought; but she could not say so to him. His quiet ways and his clear eyes had an influence on her. She knew that if she told her tale in such bare outline that his nimble and penetrating intellect would at once and easily fill up the blank. She was too proud to allow that. It would look so like a falsehood-the falsehood of a coward. And she was no coward, this proud, tall girl, whose nature had hitherto seemed like unto a frozen deep. Her voice, however, trembled a little as she spoke, but her eyes never fell, and she looked steadily in his face.

"I have come, Mr. Makinnon, to tell you something that it is right you should know." He bowed gravely.

"I have heard the value you put upon your invention."

Again he bowed.

"I have heard that a scheme has been proposed to take"-she almost said steal-" this invention away from you."

Still his only answer was a bow.

"I am grieved to say "-and here, in spite of herself, her voice faltered- -" that my father is engaged in this plot with a man, Jacob Rapeworthy. Do you know him?"

I know him."

"On Monday night, when you are away, that man's plan is to come here and to take away your machine." "I can easily prevent him."

For a moment there was silence. Miss Firebrace, as she proceeded, had lost her calmness, and her face was flushed with agitation, Robert Makinnon did not know what to say. Cannot you conceive his embarrassment?

But it lasted not a moment. A deep awe and respect for this girl fell upon him. What she had done was more heroic than marching to the stake. What a struggle! what a triumph! His soul bent in worship to this queenly spirit. With an agitated voice he said

"Miss Firebrace, believe me, what you say shall be locked in my breast. I understand your father. He loves science; he fears that a great invention shall be lost to the world. He does this thing for the benefit of humanity."

It was a clumsy attempt, and done in the whirl of agitation. A clear-eyed girl like Helen Firebrace knew too well the motives of her father, read too truly his nature; and she perfectly understood the generous feeling that sought to justify the father to the daughter

Somehow it profoundly affected her. She felt dazed

and dizzy. Just then, her eye caught sight of Katie, who had come up to her, and was looking at her with eyes so tender and timid that the girl's proud heart gave way. She stretched out her hand, and Katie took it, and kissed it with simple reverence.

Oh, Miss Firebrace," cried the tender-hearted little woman, "you look so ill; come to my room."

As in a dream, Helen let Katie lead her away. She hardly knew where she was or how she went, until she found herself lying on Katie's little white bed. Then the restraint and passion of years broke through, and she wept as if her soul would come away in tears.

And then she felt what she had never felt beforethe tender ministry of woman to woman. Katie bent above her; and the poor, proud, wearied girl felt as if an angel fanned her with real wings and softly whispered

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EELS IN PIPES.-The Chairman of the East London Water Works Company, in reply to questions about eels, said that they got into the pipes when young, and when they grew the pipes became too small for them and they died in the pipes." This is exactly what happens with a nation under landlordism. A country gets into landlordism when young, and growing, it perishes, being unable to burst the bonds of landlordism, and equally unable to live within them.

THE retrogressive condition of Mr. Chamberlain's mind is shown in an expression which he used at Edinburgh. He said, "I do not think that Scotchmen have much to fear from English prejudice in the House of Commons. I believe that if it were clear that the mind of Scotland was made up on any great question English Members would let Scotchmen settle it for themselves." Does Mr. Chamberlain forget what happened in reference to the Crofter Bill, on which the Scotch Members were constantly outvoted by English Members, who came trooping in to vote, although they had not cared to listen to the debate? If, however, Scotchmen are to settle things for themselves, why should the British House of Commons be occupied with such subjects?

LAW.

A MODEL LAND Under this title Mr. Arthur J. Williams, M.P., has expressed his views in the April number of the Fortnightly Review.

His model land law is to "keep sacred and inviolable the true ownership of land," and "working with inexorable precision, it should convert every farm and dwelling into a home from which no one could be turned out so long as he deals with it as it should be dealt with." He adds, "All this should be managed without depriving those who own the land of any single right to which they are justly entitled, and without spending a single penny of the public money."

These proposals are interesting, but, unfortuMr. Williams nately, they are incomprehensible. may be poking fun at the landlords, for he goes on to quote Mr. Mills' celebrated dictum that "the essential principle of property is to assure to all persons what they have produced by their labour, and accumulated by their abstinence."

This principle, sound though it be, is not readily adapted to the ownership of land. Even if land could be "produced by labour, or accumulated by abstinence," yet landlords are not noted for the exercise of these virtues.

The landlord obtains his income by saying to those who desire to profit by labour and abstinence, you shall do neither until you pay me so much. "In the country you shall give me a pound per acre per annum, in the town my charge will be twenty thousand pounds per acre per annum, and until you have agreed to this and other hard conditions you shall do nothing; after that you may profit by your labour and your abstinence if you can."

Mr. Williams admits that the landlord does not provide either "skill, energy, or forethought," but adds, "It is true he lends the land." But would not the land be there without the landlord?

Be he aristocrat or capitalist, the landlord does is paid; and because he has done this for generanothing but prevent others from working until he tions, and is now obtaining rents which cannot make him the "owner of a rent-charge," so that possibly be continued, Mr. Williams proposes to in future he may enjoy his "property" without even the modicum of "labour" involved in making agreements with tenants.

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ANOTHER FRAUD.-From the Land Commissioners' report for 1886, it appears that "Extraordinary Tithe " has been exacted in 495 parishes and from 7,200 farms. The aggregate annual amount is £48,000, and under the Extraordinary Tithe Redemption Bill of last year this sum has to be "capitalised," which means that as 495 clergymen have succeeded in successfully and legally robbing 7,200 farmers during the last few years, they (the clergymen, not the farmers) are to have about a million and a half sterling of our hardearned money distributed among them, so that in future they may enjoy the fruits of their robbery without the trouble of exacting it. Instead of giving this money to the farmers, who have suffered wrong, it is to be given to the clergy, who have unjustly benefited thereby.

THE DEMOCRAT.

"THEY HAVE RIGHTS WHO DARE MAINTAIN THEM."

VOL. IV.-No. 103.

Wise Politicians.

JUNE, 1887.

Sir George Trevelyan has escaped both the Scylla and Charybdis of modern politics. He did not bow the knee to the class concessions contained in the Irish measures of last year. He never gave the shadow of a sanction to land purchase, government without representation, a first order, or tribute instead of partnership in taxation. Neither has he allowed himself to become the supporter of a Tory Government, or of Coercion Acts more unjustifiable and oppressive than any which have previously been adopted. The moment he felt that we were secure from the four follies which surrounded the Irish Bills as at first proposed, he gave his cordial support to Mr. Gladstone. That he has not been premature in thus assuming our safety from the four follies is evident from Lord Rosebery's speech at Plymouth, who ridiculed the exclusion of the Irish members from Westminster, and was equally sarcastic on the limitation of their action to Imperial purposes. Mr. Gladstone has himself declared that he will not again attempt to impose land purchase on the British taxpayer. We are now, therefore, secure from the first two follies, and it is certain that we shall not hear anything more of a first order or the financial proposals which bewildered every body. Thus the ground is being cleared for action. Having ceased to do evil, the Liberal party must now learn to do well and propose a comprehensive platform including Home Rule for all parts of the Empire together with those practical reforms which are needed by the masses.

The Lesson from St. Austel. Nine-tenths of the Liberal majority lost be tween 1885 and 1887 means something, and it

PRICE TWOPENCE.

means this, that on Home Rule for Ireland alone the Liberals cannot win. The working classes of England, Scotland, and Wales are right in demanding attention to their own affairs as well as to those of Ireland, and until we have a satisfactory programme from the Liberal leaders, the Liberal party will have to take back seats. Home Rule for Ireland alone causes a dread of separation which alarms both wise and timid men. Home Rule is wanted all round, and if its general application is proposed, the masses of the United Kingdom will be stirred and excited to action.

The Dauntsey Charity.

The following brief report of proceedings in the House of Lords will be read with much

interest :

The Dauntsey Charity.-In the House of Lords on Monday the Earl of Mount-Edgecumbe, as Lord Steward, brought up her Majesty's reply to William Dauntsey, which was as follows:-"I an address relating to a bequest of Alderman have received an address praying that I shall withhold my assent from the schemes of the Charity Commissioners relating to (1) The foundation for the school and alm-houses, and for other purposes, in the parish of West Lavington, otherwise Bishop Lavington, in the county of Wilts, founded under the will of Alderman William Dauntsey, dated 10th March, 1542, and since further endowed; and (2) for dealing with the endowment of the Wilts County School in the county of Wilts, and I comply with your advice."

That the final blow to the scheme of the House of Lords is an unexpected and gratifyCharity Commissioners should be dealt by the ing result. This, we believe, is the first time

that the Commissioners have received such a rebuke from Parliament. The result is due to a persistent agitation, pointing out in unmistakable terms the nature of

the plans of the Charity Commissioners, which question. Nothing would so delight them as involved the robbery of the poor for the to see all work done by women or by men benefit of the rich. We believe the matter is working at women's wages. now out of the Commissioners' hands, and the Mercers' Company will be free to act as they please. The master of the school has resigned, so that the way is clear for reform. We shall shortly issue a penny pamphlet giving the facts of the case. The circumstances are of interest throughout the country. This successful exposure of the policy of the Charity Commissioners will cause all their schemes to be examined by Parliament, and make it less easy in future for the Commissioners to endow their wealthy friends at the expense of the working classes.

Women's Work.

Should women be allowed to work at the pit brow That question has seriously disturbed earnest thinkers, and has divided true Liberals. Certainly, their work is hardly women's work. To wear trousers and wield hammers is not exactly what is most appropriate for the daughters of Eve. But-and there is a decided but-work of any kind is so hard to get that women are glad to do anything for a morsel of bread and a sup of tea. Thus they take men's work at less than men's wages. Naturally wages fall, and men who have less than enough to maintain not only themselves, but their woman-kind, have to take wages a little nearer to starvation. Woman's work will always be looked upon with jealousy as long as employers can get women cheaper than men. The remedy is not to seek the exclusion of female labour from this or that field of activity, but to bring women within the influence of trade union. Let them work at what they can get to do, but let them not work for less than men. Meantime women do not mend matters by railing at male jealousy of women's work. What they forget is that few men have to maintain themselves alone. They have women depending on them, and thus they cannot work at women's wages. We notice that the capitalist press ignores this point in dealing with the labour

The Beginning of the End. Nothing shows the paralysis of British agriculture more completely than Mr. Mulhall's Fifty Years of National Progress." Everything has progressed except the most important industry of all. Agriculture is actually 6 per cent. lower than it was fifty years ago, and in reference to population 33 per cent. lower. The following table gives twelve points in statistical form :

...

:

1837-40. 1860.
100

1886.

110

142

100

134

224

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Population..
Wealth
Trade...
Shipping
Textile industry...
Hardware
Mining..
Agriculture...
Banking

...

Steam power

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Revenue
Instruction ...

100
100
100

...

...

...

100

...

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175 203

230 215

365 1,140

344

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134
170

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1,200 2,460 5,334 We have discovered that agriculture cannot live under landlordism, and all other industries will soon show similar signs of decay, for in time landlordism is fatal alike to all human progress.

Infidelity and Riches.

At a missionary breakfast of the Religious Tract Society, Mr. Samuel Smith, M.P., spoke solemn and far-carrying words on the growing infidelity of the upper classes of Great Britain. This is just what we might expect. The British churches do much for the upper classes, and little for the lower classes. Therefore, they have no claim to the gratitude of the latter, and they only provoke the sneers of the former. Those who sce clearest and think deepest feel alarm at the future of religion in this country. The working classes behold in the clergy only a body of men who preach the supreme duty of upholding the rights and the wrongs of property. There is in the workshop a bitterness-often unjust, but still not cause

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