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"THEY HAVE RIGHTS WHO DARE MAINTAIN THEM."

VOL. IV.-No. 106.

A New Fraud.

SEPTEMBER, 1887.

THE House of Lords has often opposed the wishes of the people and defied, for a time, the votes of the House of Commons, but we doubt if ever before it was used by a Tory Government for the purpose of setting aside a compact deliberately made by that Government with the House of Commons. This is what has been done in the matter of judicial rents; after getting the Land Bill through the Commons by a deliberate agreement with the Liberal leaders, the Unionists, and the Irish leaders, the Government propose in the Lords to disagree with their own agreement in the Commons, and judicial rents are not to be settled by the Commissioners at their discretion but are to be reduced by the percentage of reduction in the price of agricultural production. This is not only a breach of faith, but an infringement of common sense. The farmer loses, say, 20 per cent. on all his produce, and may thus be deprived of the whole of his profit, yet the landlord is to give up only a fifth part of the amount which he exacts from the concern.

The Government will now be exacting judicial rents admitted to be excessive. They will be claiming arrears of rent proved to be unjust. In resisting these demands, the Irish people will have the sympathy of the whole world outside of Downing-street.

The Political Position. THE successes of the Liberal party are in exact proportion to their departure from the errors by which the Liberal Government was wrecked last year. Mr. Gladstone has been emphatic on the subject of land purchase, for which the imperial credit is not to be employed. He states that the Irish members shall be retained "experimentally" at Westminster, and he admits that the financial proposals must be readjusted. There remains of the original objections to his scheme only the "first order," which failed to conciliate the classes, and must

PRICE TWOPence.

necessarily be abandoned. So far as Mr. Gladstone is concerned we have Home Rule pure et simple, and with that he will be certain to win. But the position should not be dependent solely on Mr. Gladstone or any other leader. The errors which have been abandoned by the chief should be abjured by the party in solemn conclave, and their recurrence made impossible. Every active radical must now see to it that no candidate is selected for any constituency unless he personally abjures the errors connected with the original proposals for Home Rule. We rejoice to see that, in speaking at the Memorial Hall, Mr. Gladstone enlarged the scope of his programme and includes Home Rule for London and a revision of taxation.

Practical Work.

As the days begin to shorten abundant work is being provided for the long winter evenings. Next to the inevitable agitation in favour of Home Rule will come a campaign for the adjustment of taxation by making the owners of ground values contribute to the public expenditure by which their property is improved. The London Municipal Reform League and the Land Restoration League have each inaugurated a movement in this direction, and in the result they will probably work together. An effective agitation in this matter would lower rents, stop overcrowding, and furnish abundant employ

ment.

In Ireland, Plans of Campaign will be arranged to meet the present state of affairs, and if these plans are effectively carried out the Government will discover that they cannot with impunity deride the demand for justice to Ireland. On the 16th of September a conference of Land Restorers will be held at Oban, from which we hope to learn that the men who profess to lead the Scotch Crofters have gained courage, and will be willing to call a spade a spade.

The Corporation of London. THE institutions of London are rotten to the core. But they are being found out. The "good old days" when the poor might he robbed in darkness and no man know of it have passed away. The P. M. G., and many another doughty champion of honesty and uprightness in the business of government, are on the war path, and scarcely a week passes without some fresh scandal being routed out and paraded before the eyes of all men. The Corporation of London can no longer figure as anything else than a gigantic lie, waiting for its death blow from the first government that shall have the power and the elementary sense of honesty requisite to enable them to destroy it. Forged tickets, packed meetings, and paid wirepullers are the only weapons by which this lie rampant, if we may so call it, has been able to avert its doom so far. These weapons have recoiled upon itself. Royalty may smile upon this scoundrelism in high places, and Tory ministers may lull it by their flatteries into a false security, but the people will soon put their hand to the plough, and will not turn back from it. The Corporation of the City of London must be ended, because no mortal man could mend it. It is time, indeed, that the grotesque anomaly which makes the largest of our towns the only exception to the benefits of municipal selfgovernment should be done away. But Londoners should remember that fortune helps those who help themselves, and should rouse themselves from the apathy which has led them to return a majority of representatives opposed to municipal reform.

The House of Lords.

LORD ROSEBERY has given notice of a motion which he will bring forward during the next Session with regard to the reform of the House of Lords. Such a motion does credit to Lord Rosebery's heart, but scarcely to his head. He ought to know that such privileged institutions as the House of Lords never reform themselves. The more they are threatened with reform from without the more do they "enclose themselves in their own fat," and turn a deaf ear to the voice of prudence and wisdom. There is an instinctive consistency about this obstinacy shown by hereditary privilege. For the principle of hereditary privilege is either entirely right or entirely wrong. If you once

begin to make exceptions and to say that "only on such and such conditions and within such and such limits will the sons of the privileged be worthy of their fathers' privileges," the simplicity and infallibility of the hereditary principle is gone for ever, and there is no stopping short of the admission that all great men are liable to have small sons, and that, therefore, to act on the hereditary principle as a principle of government is to prefer chance to skill as a guide to the well-being of men. The whole aim and object of our political institutions is to hold of the men who can rule. In the old get days this was left to chance, and in order to gloze over the method it was called "Divine Right." But nowadays we have changed all that. We have discovered that men who can rule are best chosen by and from among those who are to be ruled, and we select them by elaborate processes of sifting which we call election by ballot. All this is very good. But how is it consistent with these principles which we rightly follow in the choice of the House of Commons to retain the other principle of mere chance in the other chamber? This fundamental inconsistency in our glorious

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It is a great mistake to suppose that because the harm done by the House of Lords is not proclaimed on the housetops there is no harm being done. Every week some small blow is dealt at the people's good, until by mere force of accumulation the evil becomes intolerable. It is owing to the House of Lords that the museums and picture galleries are not opened to working-men on Sundays, and, therefore, the public-houses sow such a crop of vice and crime on that day. It is owing to the same House that so much suffering and sin is caused among the poor by the refusal to allow Englishmen to marry their deceased wives' sisters. Again, only the other day the House of Lords refused to pass a clause introduced into an Irish Bill by Mr. Sexton which would have been of huge benefit to thousands of labourers in Belfast, and introduced into the Irish Land Bill clauses which neutralise every good it might effect. The same privileged obstructives refused to pass a Bill last Session to prevent legalised robbery

in Scotland. But the list becomes tedious-and might be lengthened indefinitely. It is these perpetual acts of hostility to the people that make it impossible to allow any quarter to the House of Lords. "Cut it down, for it cumbereth the ground," will be the verdict of mankind upon this effete institution—this relic of the dark ages of feudalism.

Parliament Hill for the People.

WE wish all success to the effort which is being made by Mr. Shaw-Lefevre, and many others, to save Parliament Hill from the hands of the builders. The importance of keeping spaces of land clear of houses is daily increasing with the increase in our population. The greater the crowd the more need there is of some places where there is no crowd and we can breathe at will. But such has been the action of our landsystem in the past that the people cannot even assert its right to air-for land in this case as often means air-except at a tremendous cost. The owners of Parliament Hill have demanded £300,000 for the redemption of this piece of land from their clutches. Parliament has voted £50,000 from the City Charities, and the Vestries of St. Pancras and Hampstead have contributed £50,000-from the ratepayers' pockets. Thus there is still required £200,000 in order to save many thousands of our posterity in London, through the ages from unhealthy conditions of existence at Hampstead. If this land were taxed on its actual value, these gentlemen-Lord Mansfield and Sir Spencer Wilson-would be only too glad to take far less than the sum which they now demand.

Lord Salisbury and Russia. Lord Salisbury has suddenly discovered that there is room for both England and Russia in Asia." We rub our eyes and wonder whether Asia has grown larger or Lord Salisbury's pretentions smaller. Not very long ago we were told by this self-same man to fight Russia to the death, either for no reason at all, or just because there was not room for both her and England in Asia. A short time in office has brought Lord Salisbury round to our way of thinking. The fact is, there is always land enough in the world for the nations of the world -except when two of them want the same piece. If we fought Russia now, it would be because we wanted a piece properly belonging to

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SOME time since the Government instituted an inquiry, which has cost a considerable sum, to ascertain the number of persons unemployed in East London, but the result of that inquiry has not been made public. Mr. Ritchie, as an excuse for delay, says "the question was of so extremely novel and difficult a character that delay is unavoidable." Where the novelty exists it would be difficult to say, but one thing is certain, that everybody knows that the number out of work is very large. We do not require an elaborate volume of statistics but a remedy. The only effective remedy is to get landlords out of the way and allow the people to get to work upon the land. There would then be an abundance of employment.

Royal Favouritism.

ONE of the curses of Royalty is the favouritism which seems inseparable from it. This favouritism becomes an intolerable burden when a nation has for figurehead a Queen with such numerous relations and connections as ours is blessed with. In such a case the nation's best interests are fooled away in order to provide these relations and connections with incomes and uniforms. The Prince of Wales is gazetted Admiral of the Fleet in order to appear in blue and gold at the Review! The Prince Louis of Battenberg has a royal road ready levelled for him through doctors' certificates and over the heads of better officers than himself to the commandership of the Dreadnought, one of our largest ironclads! A large portion of our fleet is entrusted in the hands of one of the Queen's sons, the Duke of Edinburgh, while the Indian army is handed over to another, the Duke of Connaught, of" stay-behind-the-battle" renown. He was not very much missed in India when he came home for the Jubilee. Now we shall be told that all this sort of thing is inseparable from Royalty, and if we have the one we must

grin and bear the other. Not so. There is a King and Queen in Norway, but their relatives are allowed the same chances in life as every one else, and no more.

Episcopal High-handedness.

THEIR lordships, the Bishops of London and Llandaff, have been giving the British democracy some pretty object lessons in the constitution and spirit of our so-called "national " church. The Bishop of London has refused to give Mr. Stewart Headlam any leave to officiate in his diocese, owing to a difference of opinion on the subject of ballet-dancing. It is surely a harmless and not entirely unchristian foible of Mr. Headlam's to suppose that more can be done in matters of this kind by sympathy than isolation, and, at any rate, it cannot interfere with his general capability to perform the functions of a Christian minister. It is certainly overstating the matter to accuse Mr. Stewart Headlam of "doing serious mischief" as the Bishop of London accuses him. But the Bishop of Llandaff appears to us to have acted yet more arbitrarily and despotically. He has suspended a curate in his diocese without hearing him in his own defence, merely on the word of his rector, that his opinions are "unorthodox," which means that the curate's "doxy," as the saying is, is not the rector's "doxy." The most striking feature in both these cases is that the flocks

are not consulted at all, but are simply treated as dumb driven sheep, to be lead to Heaven by their priestly pastors without any effort of their own.

The Midland Strike.

OUR railway engine drivers are as fine a body of men as can be found on the face of the earth, and it is much to be regretted that they should be subjected to the obvious injustice of having to give constant attendance throughout the week without receiving a week's wages. It was for the purpose of extending this system to the Midland Railway that the directors drove their men to a strike which has proved discreditable to the Company and disastrous to the men. Common sense revolts at the idea of men being compelled to dance attendance from Sunday morning to Saturday night, while their chance of employment depends upon the caprice of a foreman who may use his power without any sense of responsibility. The men were right in

resisting the imposition of such a system, and it is to be regretted that they were not better supported in their attempt. What has happened will, we trust, show to working-men the necessity for closer union amongst themselves, so that injustice and oppression may be successfully resisted.

The Triumph of the "Pall Mall Gazette." IT is not easy to estimate the value of the service rendered to humanity by the action of the Pall Mall Gazette in the case of the Langworthy marriage. Few persons would have had the courage to undertake such a case, and fewer still would have had the judgment and energy necessary for success. The triumphant issue will not only secure justice to Mrs. Langworthy, but it will be a perpetual warning to wealthy villains and astute lawyers. The longest purse, the most able solicitors, the highest forensic ability, have all been defeated and disgraced because they worshipped wealth and despised humanity. Even the most selfish lawyers will have to be more careful in future, and will find it necessary in their own interest to take truth and justice into account.

The City Subway.

THE progress of the City and Southwark Subway Company shows that tunnels fifty feet below the surface can be easily opened under London. By means of well-constructed lifts these subways afford an easy means of transit which, at little cost, will relieve the congestion of our streets. The chief difficulty in the way of extending these tunnels is our absurd land system, which gives a landlord under whose property a foot of the tunnel is driven the power to compel the Company to purchase the whole of his property. Of course landlords avail themselves of this power to demand enormous "compensation." Parliament has authorised the Company to use the public land under streets without making any payment therefor, and rightly so, because no harm is done by a tunnel fifty feet from the surface. If the Company are entitled to public lands on these terms, because they do no damage, for the same reason they should have the same right under private lands without being subjected to blackmail. This blackmail is now mercilessly levied by landlords even when property is not only not injured but it is greatly increased in value by

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THE idea of Home Rule for London and the taxation of ground values was more cheered than any other sentiment uttered by Mr. Gladstone at the Memorial Hall.

WE speak of taxing "ground values" instead of "ground rents" because all ground values should be taxed, whether they assume the shape of ground rents or remain in possession of the

owners.

LORD WEMYSS mourns that "bold bad" men will help one another. He would prefer that the principle of human society should be "the devil take the hindmost, O."

"STOUT sinning is better than rickety righteousness," says the Saturday Review. We now know why our contemporary always sins so stoutly.

"I FEAR the Greeks, with gifts in their hands," said the Trojan of old. We fear the Tories most when they bring in "popular legislation." They aggravate where they pretend to settle. The Allotment Bill will make it far more difficult to deal with the question properly in the future.

MR. CHAMBERLAIN says "the Government knows better than we, and so, perhaps, they are right after all in proclaiming the National League," and he goes on to say that, therefore, all responsibility rests with the Government. Has Mr. Chamberlain forgotten that the Coercion Act throws the whole responsibility of the proclamation on Parliament ?

George, Ranger.

ONE of the principal obligations attached to land tenure was that the landholder should provide for the defence of the country.

George, Ranger, a Royal Duke, and Commanderin-Chief of that army which landlordism does not provide as it should, actually presumes to obstruct those who volunteer to make up for landlordism's short-comings, and drive them away from Wimbledon.

If ever there was a just occasion for resumption it occurs now. Wimbledon should be at once resumed for the public weal.

George, Ranger, may have the assurance to demand compensation. What for? For breaking covenants and defrauding the State.

It is high time the masses should study the land question to know what their rights are, and get some return for the use of their soil.

Landlordism, instead of being a beneficent institution, is an unmitigated curse. The soil should now be managed in the interest of its owners, not of its holders, who should be summarily dismissed. Compensation, forsooth!

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