we have the distinction paramount. Having quite rightly put the landlords, in virtue of a real distinction between land and all other means of produce, on quite a different footing from all other creditors so far as the future goes, they suddenly assert-just when the pressure of the said landlords makes it convenient-that their "fundamental principle" all along has been to put all creditors on the same footing, and on the ground of that falsehood refuse to make any distinction in respect of the past. This illogical obstinacy was supported by Lord Hartington and Mr. Chamberlain, and because the Irish refused to accept the "funda. mental principle," Mr. Chamberlain threatened to tell everybody in Ulster that they alone were responsible for the omission to deal with arrears. The Irish were quite right to refuse to accept the compromise. If adopted, it would have reduced all credit in Ireland to a chaos. The landlords would have got their rent at the expense of the tradesmen, the unproductive would have been fostered at the expense of the productive classes. Indeed, it was a principle so fatal to all social well-being that we cannot believe that the Government seriously meant it, but prefer to suppose that it was put forward as a blind, especially as it was discovered so late in the day. If it was meant, it was a dastardly attempt on the part of the Irish landlord party"Abercorn and his lot," as Sir William Harcourt called them - to reverse the whole tendency of land legislation since 1881-which is, to deal with land as a peculiar commodity and landlords as peculiar creditors-and to reassert the old claim of the landlord to a sole possession of the land in the same sense as the tradesman has sole possession of his commodity. The "fundamental principle' of the Government has been dead these six years. But that is generally so with the "fundamental principles" of Tory Governments. Their devotion to dead objects is really touching. We wonder sometimes whether they will ever meet these dear old "fundamental principles " that are passing away-such as landlordism and hereditary privilege-in another and better (?) world. Like flies to like. In whatever world the meeting takes place, it will simply be a "readjustment of environment."

BUT the fact remains that the arrears have not been touched by the Land Bill, and that by the time the winter comes we shall probably be in the middle of another crisis. Under these circumstances-in face of the extraordinary obstinacy of the Government-the Irish will be compelled to walk in the same paths as they are treading at present and to apply the Plan of Campaign whenever it may become a necessary protection against unjust eviction. But for the Plan of Campaign many more evictions would have taken place in Ireland last winter, and with this additional difference, that the evictors would have worked in the darkness which they love and would have avoided that publicity which is now making eviction so expensive to the Government. The actual horrors of Bodyke and Glenbeigh were a sufficient answer to the ideal atrocities of Parnellism and Crime, and it is needless to point out which have produced the greatest impression on the electorate. Therefore, the same method will have to be employed in the coming winter in those cases where tenants are threatened with eviction for non-payment of arrears, and if the Irish are sent to prison they will go in company. We wish that English tenants would unite in the same way and go to prison in the same cause. But the evils of landlordism in England are palliated and concealed by our great manufactures. They exist all the same.

NOBODY has yet attempted to explain why what is impossible this year will be found possible next year-in other words, why the Government measure of Land Purchase is timed just to appear next year and cannot appear before. For our part we cannot conceive whence the Government intend to derive the credit for purchasing the land of Ireland. Mr. Gladstone's Bill is discredited, and with it the imperial exchequer as a source of credit. The Irish exchequer is the peculiar tenet of the Home Ruler, and is entirely anathema to the faithful Unionist. What other source of credit remains? It seems to " pass the wit of man" to devise one. And yet everyone seems to take in sober earnest the hypocritical assurance of the Government that they will bring in a large measure of land purchase next year.

WHAT is more serious is that tenants are buying, in many parts of Ireland, under Lord Ashbourne's Act, which does not differ in principle from Mr. Gladstone's. £5,000,000 has already been voted for carrying out that Act. To the extent of £5,000,000, that is to say, the English taxpayer is being mulcted to fill the pocket of the Irish landlord. This must cease. If the Government put their scheme of land purchase in the insidious form of an extension of Lord Ashbourne's Act, the English people must not be deceived. It will be nothing more or less than Mr. Gladstone's Bill traitorously revived by those who condemned it most. The reduction of prices has almost obliterated the natural value of Irish land. Therefore, the very basis of purchase is cut away.

The English Land Restoration League. THE Summer months-especially during such a Summer as we have had this year-are not favourable to that kind of work which takes the form of public meetings, but the English Land League has been by no means idle since its annual meeting in May last.

In some respects the Summer is a very favourable time for the distribution of literature, and this has been carried on to a greater extent than ever before during the past three months. The League took advantage of the Jubilee craze to issue a leaflet, entitled The People's Jubilee, with which our readers are already familiar as it was reprinted in these columns. The demand for it has been very great, and its continued circulation would be useful, as it deals with the objections often urged by earnest religious people against land restoration. Two other leaflets have since been issued in large quantities. The tract by Mr. Arthur O'Connor, M.P., on "Landlordism, the Cause of Trade Depression," completely disposes of the absurd idea that the land question is wholly or chiefly an agricultural question, showing as it does that landlordism paralyses not only the agricultural, but also the mining, manufacturing, and commercial industries. It might be circulated among the members of trade societies with great advantage. "Punch's Catechism for Londoners," has been reprinted (by special permission) from Punch, and is the first of a proposed series on ground rents.

It is hoped that Welsh leaflets on the land question may shortly be prepared and issued, and subscriptions will be gratefully received from Welsh friends who may wish to promote this object.

The following societies have become affiliated to the League since the annual meeting :-The Henry George Institute (Glasgow), Peckham and Dulwich Radical Club, the Waterhead Reform Club (Oldham).

Beside numerous lectures delivered in the London clubs, some important provincial meetings have been held.

The Rev. Stewart Headlam addressed, on July

10th, a great meeting at Bolton, at the invitation of a local committee of working-men. The outcome of the lecture has been the formation of a branch of the League in Bolton. Miss Helen Taylor will shortly lecture, under the auspices of the branch, in one of the largest available halls in the town.

The secretary lectured twice at the end of July in Abercarne, Monmouthshire. Both lectures were delivered to large audiences in the Market Place, the subjects being Landlordism, the Cause of Trade Depression," and "The Bible and the Land Question." Other lectures in the district are being arranged.

The Rev. Stewart Headlam, who has been speaking as Warden of the Guild of St. Matthew among the Tyneside miners on the moral and religious aspects of the land question, gives a most encouraging report of the state of feeling in Northumberland, where the exactions of landlordism, especially in the matter of mining royalties and wayleaves, have brought the question to the front.

The executive have not lost sight of the resolution which was passed at the annual meeting (May 18th) urging the formation of a "special committee" of members of the League and others 'for the purpose of bringing into greater prominence the question of the taxation of ground values." Important negotiations are being carried on, and it is expected that within a few weeks the executive will be in a position to make announcements of a very satisfactory character with regard to the committee. There is every prospect of a very active agitation during the next winter, and Mr. Gladstone's recent declaration on the ground rent question seems to show that in this agitation the Liberal and Radical party in the metropolis will be actively engaged on the right side.

Active workers and increased funds are necessary if the League is to make in the future the same rapid progress as in the past. Every reader of the DEMOCRAT, who is not already a member, should send his name and subscription at once to Mr. Fredk. Verinder, the secretary, 8, Duke-street, Adelphi, London, W.C.

A LADY in business in the suburbs of Cork writes to us:-"The spirits seem completely crushed out of the people, and they have just cause. The law in Ireland is made for nothing but for trampling on the people and for making them abject serfs. Can anything be done to improve this state of things? I fear not while we have a government of landlords. May God help Ireland."

THE recent rejection of the scheme of the Charity Commissioners respecting the Dauntsey Charity has not been without its influence. Sir W. Hart Dyke said, in the House of Commons, that:-"S

:-"So far as the Charity Commissioners were concerned, they were aware that there had been a considerable change in public opinion, and in the future drawing up of schemes they would frame them, not only with regard to that change in public opinion, and the question of the payment of fees, but especially with reference to the report of the committee. Moreover, these schemes required ratification by the Vice-President of the Council, and as far as he was concerned, in any scheme presented to him for confirmation, he should have regard to the recommendations of the committee. (Hear.) "

L

MY DEAR George,

Many things have happened since you stood in front of the Royal Exchange and warned the votaries of Mammon that their gold and silver would canker so long as it was obtained by injustice and robbery. That warning was not given in vain. It has had a decided influence on British politics, and this influence increases every day. The last indication of its effect is found in the language of Mr. Gladstone at the Memorial Hall a few days ago, when he recognised and emphasised the fact that our great London improvement, the Thames Embankment, was made at the cost of workingmen and tradesmen, and that the landlords who benefit by its construction were not called upon to contribute to its cost. This statement contains the germ of the principles for which we are contending, and it will germinate until the whole body politic is pervaded thereby and our land teems with life and happiness.

CHEERING PROSPECTS.

The present condition of our politics is a puzzle to many on this side of the Atlantic, and it must be still more incomprehensible to those who are three thousand miles distant. The people's prospects were probably never better than at present. The triangular condition of political parties is favourable for Radical influences. Tories, Unionists, and Liberals are competing for popular favour, which throws the balance of power into the hands of the Radicals, and they already exercise a predominating influence. The new

Irish Land Act is an indication of this. When Lord Salisbury came into power he declared that judicial rents having been fixed by a Parliamentary arrangement were inviolable, and the farmers, therefore, must pay them whether the land produced the rent or whether it did not, and if the farmers did not pay the ratepayers must be called upon to make up the deficiency rather than tamper with the stability and permanence of Parliamentary action. This is always the kind of argument by which every sort of legal injustice is supported, and hitherto it has prevailed. But a change has come. The very Government who made the declaration which I have quoted in the autumn of 1886, has in the summer of 1887 abandoned the position; and both Houses of Parliament have now passed an Act by which judicial rents, fixed previously to 1886, will be revised and reduced. This proceeding removes the prop and mainstay of landlordism, which is based on nothing but Acts of Parliament. It can find no support under an appeal to natural justice, it cannot stand the test of utility, and it must, therefore,

go by the board as soon as the fact is recognised that the doings of Parliament are subject to revision in order to make them consistent with justice and common sense.

GOVERNMENT CONCESSIONS AND GOVERNMENT DISHONESTY.

It must not be supposed that this tremendous concession was proposed by the Government or was willingly adopted by them. It was a concession wrung from them by the Irish party assisted by the Liberal leaders and the Unionists. The Irish Land Bill as it came from the Lords contained no such provision, and over and over again the Government declared that the idea of subjecting the judicial rents to revision could not be entertained. But the Irish were firm, the Liberals were firm, the Unionists were firm, and Lord Salisbury gave way, yielding as he said not to conviction, but in order to continue in office which otherwise he must have surrendered. To the astonishment and disgust, however, of all honest men, the Government, after having agreed in the House of Commons to refer judicial rents to the LandCourts, altered the arrangement in the Lords, and limited the reduction of these same rents to the proportion in which prices have fallen. This is in itself absurd, as we do not want the commissioners to arrange for a percentage reduction, and it is also entirely unpractical, as prices do not alone govern the situation. For instance, during the last two months the want of rain has reduced the quantity of butter produced by one-half, while it has raised the price perhaps 25 per cent. Thus the half-ruined farmer will have no reduction for the short quantity, and the rise in price will tell against him.

On one point the Government have really been "firm." They refused to concede the demand made by the Liberal party that the reduction of rent, found to be just and necessary, should be applied to arrears. Even this demand they would have yielded but for Lord Hartington, the Unionist leader, who, in spite of remonstrance from his lieutenants, Mr. Chamberlain and Mr. T. W. Russell, encouraged the Government in claiming all arrears. We shall, therefore, continue to have the edifying spectacle of armies of soldiers and policemen employed at the public expense to enforce claims on behalf of landlords which are admittedly unreasonable and unjust.

The folly, the meanness, the injustice of spending pounds of the public money to recover shillings for harsh landlords, will be continued. Men, women, and children will be hurled from their homes, and the smoke of burning thatch will

again darken the blue sky. But every foul blow thus struck on behalf of landlordism now resounds throughout the world, and, thanks to Michael Davitt, the victories of landlordism turn upon those who attempt to crush them, and instead of meekly crawling out of their houses, offer all "reasonable resistance to the oppressor.

THE FURIOUS DUKE.

The Duke of Argyle is furious. He tells us that"fair rents are an encouragement to idleness. By revising rents instead of evicting tenants we lose an opportunity of screwing more labour out of the people. He declares that it is a Bill for "protecting not the native industry but the native laziness of Irishmen." During the reign of Queen Victoria the "native laziness" of Irishmen has produced from Irish soil and paid to idle landlords no less a sum than from 600 to 700 millions of pounds sterling, for which the aforesaid landlords have done nothing but abuse their tenants and burn their dwellings. The Duke, after denouncing the Bill, declared that it "must be accepted from the necessities of the political situation." It is interesting to enquire what it is that has made it necessary for the proud Duke of Argyle and the mighty Lord Salisbury to strike their standards and yield to the situation. To John Dillon and Michael Davitt belong the honour of having compelled this surrender. But for the

PLAN OF CAMPAIGN

no concession would have been made. It is the Plan of Campaign which has demonstrated to haughty Tories and heartless landlords that they can no longer ride rough shod over a patient and industrious people. Landlords see more quickly than the people that resistance to oppression makes oppression impossible, and all that British landlords can now hope for is to appease for a time the spirit of resistance, for if it be further provoked and developed they will be in the same position as the coppersmiths of Ephesus. All hope of their gains will be gone.

The blessed truths which Dillon and Davitt are so effectually teaching in Ireland are being learned in England and Scotland, and the time is not far distant when demands for unjust rents will be met by such active and passive resistance as will make impossible all attempts to collect them.

FREE DINners.

In other ways we are advancing. Mr. Mundella, in the House of Commons, has advocated free dinners for the children of board schools. These dinners are to cost the magnificent sum of one cent each. In this wealthy country thousands of children are kept so near to starvation that when food is provided for them they can take only a

ha'p'orth at a time. Penny or two cent dinners would make them ill so small is their capacity for digestion through having so little to digest.

Our political economists still protest against free dinners, even at so small a cost. They contend, perhaps rightly, that people are demoralised when they get something for nothing. This may be sound doctrine, but they apply it to the wrong end of the social scale. Our landlords get half a million sterling every working day from the people, and they are certainly demoralised thereby, but until you appeared no political economist protested against this state of things. As matters stand we cannot do much harm in returning to our children and old people a small fraction of what the landlords take from them, therefore we may safely advocate free dinners for the young and a small pension for the old as compensation for the injustice to which they are subjected.

WHAT YOU SAW IN WILTshire.

But while we rejoice that public opinion is advancing and that we are learning how to checkmate landlordism by Plans of Campaign, we must acknowledge that but little has yet been done towards redressing the tremendous balance of injustice which weighs upon the people.

You will remember the uncultivated land near Devizes, belonging to Watson Taylor. It is of excellent quality, and each five acres would support a family in the greatest comfort. It is uncultivated because the owner refuses to give a lease, and although he would let it at 15s. per acre to a large farmer, he demands from small working farmers £3 per acre per annum. The land has therefore been out of cultivation for several years, while many hard-working industrious men look at it with longing eyes as a certain means of relieving themselves and their children from destitution, and wonder that a 'paternal government" continues to stand between them and the means of living which nature has provided for their use.

THE NATIONAL LEAGUE PROCLAIMED. As I write, the intelligence is telegraphed that the National League is proclaimed. The effect of this no one can foresee. It is doubtless intended to provoke the Irish people to violence and thus justify the Coercion Act. If the people are wise and can exercise self-control under most difficult circumstances they will not resort to violence. The proper answer to the proclamation would be to declare No Liberty, No Rent! Let the payment for land rent in Ireland be suspended, all attempts to enforce it steadfastly resisted, and the Government would in three months be on its back. Many Englishmen will now join the Irish National League in order to afford to its leaders moral and material support.

THE ALLOTMENTS BILL.

A grotesque Allotments Bill is now being discussed in Parliament. The only good of it is that it involves the recognition by a Tory government of the principle that landlord's claims must be limited on behalf of working-men.

The Bill proposes to provide that where allotments are required they must be supplied. The local authority buying the land and letting it at a profit to the working-man in quantities not exceeding one acre of arable or three acres of pasture. The humorous part of the Bill is that which prohibits an allottee from building a house on the land. He may put up a hothouse or a pig-sty, he may develop pigs or plants, but if he wants to shelter his own children he must look elsewhere. The Bill would shovel the money of the public into the pockets of landowners and lawyers and tempt inexperienced working-men to rent land at rates which they cannot continue to pay. Our people are rapidly learning with regard to land that we must not buy our rights but take them.-Yours always truly, WILLIAM Saunders.

TECHNICAL EDUCATION.

SIR,-As to the importance of technical education there can be no question, and this importance is now more apparent than it was in the past, owing partly to the competition of foreigners in our various industries, and also to the almost universal abolition of the system of apprenticeship. In the olden time the only way possible to learn any handicraft was to serve a seven years' apprenticeship, but now, owing to the introduction of machinery and the division of labour, the system of apprenticeship is becoming almost obsolete, and even where an apprenticeship is undergone, nine times out of ten when the apprentice is out of his time he finds he knows but little of his trade, and here comes the importance of a technical training in early life. In Holland and in Germany the State take care to teach the children at school the rudiments of as many handicrafts as possible, and thus prepare them for fighting the battle of life, and thus compete with the working classes throughout the world. The Government have at last become alive to the importance of technical education, and have introduced a Bill, but such a Bill that anyone can see they have done their level best to prevent its being effective, except in the direction of obtaining votes at the next election. If the framers of the Bill were in downright earnest to benefit the working classes, they would invoke the assistance of the Labour Members of Parliament who are in touch with the people, and who know where the shoe pinches, and then in all probability a measure might be passed which would be successful in the direction of enabling the English workman to more successfully compete with his foreign confrères, and the country might maintain its place in industrial competition with our foreign rivals. As the Bill now stands, it is most likely to prove a shadow instead of the substance. ARTISAN.

"TRUTH ON BRYANT AND MAY. SIR,-Truth, which sometimes misleads, has been comparing the small remuneration received by the makers of the "Ruby" match-boxes for Bryant and May, with their large dividend.

To say nothing of the purity of the motive, the effect of such invidious comparisons might be harmful, and democrats, above all, should reason justly.

Though the directors of the Company will not indicate from what quarter their profits come, we may rely on it the "Ruby " branch does not yield much.

The Company trades avowedly for profit, without professing to be a philanthropic institution, though it is one perforce.

Employers and employed have their own ends and vast numbers of unemployed would gladly accept employment on the same terms as are given by Bryant and May, if they could get it. How much better then to increase their chances than to make the others dissatisfied. Even now, to compete with the foreigner, the Company is compelled to maintain subordinate factories abroad. It is, therefore, short-sighted to imperil a homeindustry by driving away the " Ruby" match manufacture.

We should rather patronise the home-made article for the sake of our own poor. When foreign competition is overcome, no doubt Bryant and May will respond by raising their prices and their wages, but this rests entirely with con

sumers.

I am induced to write because the following facts show that the old firm was on our side.

On emerging once from the Bow Railway Station, an elegant fountain caught my eye, it was erected by the working-classes to mark their gratitude for the benefits conferred on them by Bryant and May, and I dare say the match-box makers contributed their mites.

On walking toward the church I saw a colossal bronze statue of Mr. Gladstone, erected at the cost of Mr. Theodore Bryant, and presented to the inhabitants. Mr. Wilberforce Bryant has lately given £10,000 towards the People's Palace at the East-end.

The relations between employers and employed were evidently cordial, then why should Truth attempt to sow discord? Rumour says the proprietor of the paper is a great financial operator, and there are " bears" in Bryant and May.

A DEMOCRAT.

ONCE more let it be said, this is not an issue between Mr. Brunner and Lord Henry Grosvenor merely, but between the Dukes and democracy.— Daily News,