Зображення сторінки
PDF
ePub

before we can put them in the position we wish, and all these are essentially matters of time. True, the sooner we begin the better, and for this reason. I should substitute one word, confiscation for compensation, in Mr. George's speech and say, "Can nothing be done to remedy this injustice till the land has been confiscated," for I think it can hardly be denied that we should be able to carry a compensative scheme a very long time before we could hope to confiscate the land. My friends the confiscationists speak as if we had the game in our hands and had only to choose between confiscation and compensation, utterly ignoring the fact that we have gigantic forces to contend against, and that we may be able to do the whole thing one way while we are squabbling about the other.

This is not all, however. Mr. George says that much as the landowners take it is little to what they destroy by denying the people free opportunities. I quite agree with him, and consider that it is of much more importance, and that the poorest classes will derive infinitely more advantages by the taking over of the land to be let for the benefit of the people than by the mere relief from the millions we are paying in rent. Now, according to my scheme you get this greater advantage at once. Is not this a solid advantage over a plan which would put this off indefinitely, which would leave the peasants under the squire and parson for another generation or two?

If the confiscationists advocated restoring the land at once to the people, and of appropriating the ground-rent for the use of its rightful owners at one stroke, I could respect their position; the plan would be bold, if dangerous; they would be working on a noble principle for a noble object, if a little merciless to their fallen foes. But they don't advocate this, first, perhaps, because they shrink from the literal carrying out of their teaching; second, because they know they can't do it. So they propose that the landowners are to be gradually taxed out of their rent, to be done to death in the course of time, through a long and bitter strife they are to be knocked down by a series of blows, all of them hard enough to make them writhe, none of them hard enough to kill them; this process is to go on till the aggregate number of blows has been sufficient to do for them, and then and then only are we to jump upon our fallen foes and claim our inheritance and the management of our estates, both of which they would, as an alternative, gladly have given us a generation before for a "consideration," which, heavy as it might appear, would be very much the cheapest, the safest, and the pleasantest way of getting rid of them.

The plan is economically unsound, which I would show had I the space. It is dangerous, as it is more than possible that during the struggle the landowners might manage to thrash us, it is but a compromise after all as we are to continue to pay the landowners large amounts for an indefinite period, it would afford no real or visible relief that I can see to the poor during all the earlier stages. At any rate, the bitterness of this strife would have the tendency to demoralise instead of elevate the people, it would, in the unsettled state of society,

disturb trade and invite the propagation of all sorts of unsound and violent doctrines.

In conclusion, let me say that I am afraid we shall probably not be lucky enough to be able to attempt this great work in the best way, whatever that may be. But one thing I do pray for, and that is that it will not be our lot to attempt it in what, I fear, is the very worst.-I remain, Sir, yours truly, CHARLES WICKSTEED.

With reference to Mr. Wicksteed's letter, Mr. Saunders writes as follows:

It was not until I saw this letter in print that discovered the exquisite vein of satire by which it is pervaded. The blue veil under which Mr. Wicksteed has concealed his view prevented me from discovering the baited trap which he has so ingeniously laid for the landlords. It is true that he boldly proposes to give them four thousand five hundred millions of pounds, which is expressed in ten figures, thus £4,500,000,000; this is the bait. But the final result is to "depend altogether upon the temper and sense of justice of people at the time;" this is the trap. We may therefore feel quite satisfied that "temper and a sense of justice will remove two of the figures from the long array which denotes the amount, and the figures removed will be the 4 and the 5.

Mr. Wicksteed attributes to me a statement to

the effect that "there ought to be an inquiry into how the land was obtained by the present owner." I have never made any such statement, and I fail to see how the case is affected by the method in which the landlords' demand originates. The landlord claims to participate in the results of future labour without contributing to that result. No method of obtaining the power to do this can make it just or bearable. To the present generation it makes no difference whether this power was obtained by force, fraud, inheritance, or purchase; in any case the effect is the same-the landlord robs industry. He robs the industry of the present and the industry of the future. If a man buys the power to do this he invests his money for a share in a fraud. The fact that he does so according to law merely shows that our lawmakers committed a breach of trust for their own benefit.

us.

When a fraud is discovered it should be stopped, and it will be a bad day for this country when we adopt the policy of paying robbers for not robbing It will be a precedent always encouraging to the unscrupulous and fraudulent. The people are strong enough to take their rights, and to buy them would be a confession of weakness and cowardice for which they would deserve the contempt and the suffering that such a course would entail.

-:0:

RESUMPTION.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE DEMOCRAT. SIR, It is high time to place incontrovertible facts before the industrious classes, staggering facts that will expose the ignorance of the privileged classes if they dispute them, and convince them of the weakness of their position when they understand them.

A "spirited foreign policy" is a stale artifice for distracting our attention from home reforms, and a wilful perversion of truth is another trick of State

craft.

Taking up the Times this 13th of October, I find a leader holding up Henry George to odium, through fear that the land question will receive an impetus should he become mayor of New York, and I immediately suspect that the proprietors of that paper are of the class now beginning to be in terror of the awakening intelligences of the landless

mass.

Henry George is not the foe to "civilised order" that the Times represents him; he advocates the resumption of no man's land. Perhaps he is not aware that resumption in England is constitutional. He merely recommends the taxation of rents so long as land rents remain to be taxed; and where is the wrong when land rent is the natural revenue of the State? Originally there was no other

revenue.

Let the landed class honestly pay our rates and taxes and we shall not seek to molest it; let it continue to shirk its duty and we will do our best to enlighten the landless masses as to the forgotten, but wholesome corrective of resumption.

In your last number it was seen how King Henry V. resumed lands because they contributed nothing to support the State, and similarly, by the advice of his lords, King Henry VIII., a bolder man, resumed the lands of the English monasteries in 1535 A.D. "for the profytte of thys realme." (Act 27 Henry VIII., c. 28; Act 31 Henry VIII., c. 13, A.D. 1539; Act 37 Henry VIII, c. 4, A.D. 1545, Statutes of the Realm, vol. iii., p. 75, &c.)

The very essence of land tenure was State service, or reddit or rent. The original grantees or landholders thoroughly well understood this, and that they could not convey a better title than they had received.

Lancastrian kings would resume the lands of Yorkists as traitors, and Yorkist kings would resume the lands of the Lancastrians as traitors, and by the same rule landless masses can resume the soil from the traitors who appropriate those rents which were intended to support the State.

"The profit of the realm" is paramount, and if it can be shown that Clissold Park, Richmond Hill, or Highgate Woods would afford healthy recreation to the people and tend to their elevation,

the resumption of them for the use of the public, without compensation, would be a constitutional proceeding fully concurring with the original condition of land tenure.

JOHN WHEELWRIGHT.

London, 13th October, 1886.

:0:

THE POWER OF THE PEOPLE.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE DEMOCRAT. SIR, If words mean anything THE DEMOCRAT means an exponent of the people's strength. The masses have forgotten the constitutional maxim that "the people are the source of all power," or they would act upon it. Mr. Wheelwright has chosen the right way to convince them of their power

by quoting historical precedents, and I will second his efforts from time to time.

I now beg to offer the following conclusive evidence that the people can abolish the House of Lords in spite of Lord Salisbury's assertion to the contrary.-Yours, LEX.

"March 19, 1648. An Act for abolishing the House of Peers.

"The Commons of England assembled in Parlia"ment finding, by too long experience, that the "House of Lords is useless and dangerous to the "people of England to be continued, have thought "fit to ordain and enact, and be it ordained and "enacted by the present Parliament and by the "authority of the same, that from henceforth the "House of Lords shall be and is hereby wholly "abolished and taken away; and that the Lords "shall not from henceforth meet or sit in the said "House of Lords, nor shall sit, vote, advise, "adjudge, or determine of any matter or thing "whatsoever as a House of Lords in Parliament. "Nevertheless, it is hereby declared that neither such "Lords as have demeaned themselves with honour, courage, and fidelity to the commonwealth, their "posterities, who shall continue so, shall not be "excluded from the public councils of the nation, "but shall be admitted thereunto and have their "free vote in Parliament, if they shall be thereunto "elected, as other persons of interest elected and "qualified thereunto ought to have. And be it "further ordained and enacted by the authority "aforesaid, that no Peer of this land, not being "elected, qualified, and sitting in Parliament afore"said, shall claim, have, or make use of any privilege "of Parliament, either in relation to his person, "quality, or estate, any law, usage, or custom to "the contrary notwithstanding.

66

"HEN. SCOBEL, Clerk in Parliament."

:0:

A LEAFLET LEAGUE.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE DEMOCRAT, SIR,-In this month's issue you allude to the activity of the Primrose League, and draw attention to the necessity for the creation of a counteracting organisation.

its work successfully, must be adapted to the Political, like every other kind of machinery, to do requirements of the work it has to perform. Our opponents' League is admirably adapted to produce the ends it has to arrive at, viz., the enticing into the Tory ranks of voters by social bribery. But as Democratic Radicalism could not, if it would, procure recruits by blanket bribery or big mixes, where a speech from the Chancellor of the Exchequer and a cup of tea from the neatest thing in Duchesses is sandwiched in with Punch and Judy shows and the performances of nigger minstrels, we need not trouble to note their machinery, our work being not to bribe, but to reason people into joining us.

Is it not possible to organise from our ranks a body of volunteer visitors who, under the active supervision of superintendents would, week by week, distribute from house to house pamphlets and

leaflets setting forth the various items in our programme with facts bearing upon them, &c., and if, in addition, the supervisors formed lodges of instruction wherein the visitors under them could be perfected in a full knowledge of the great truths the party is advocating and the advantages to be derived from the reforms it presses for, then in a short time would be created an army of earnest thinkers and workers, who would quickly reduce to impotence the beer and blanket bribers of the Primrose League.

Seeing the nature of the work such an organisation would perform, the name of the Leaflet League does not seem inappropriate.-I am, sir, your obedient servant,

Clapham Liberal and Radical Club.

J. BEST.

We gladly give insertion to the proposal of Mr. Best. The name he suggests is a happy thought. There is, however, no occasion to wait for the formation of such a League. Let any Radical who wants to be up and doing buy 25 copies of THE DEMOCRAT, and sell them.

:0:

TO THE EDITOR OF THE DEMOCRAT. SIR,-I should like to say a few words in answer to "J. B.'s" letter in your last issue, as we have much in common to complain of. I, like him, reside in a Tory county where they try to crush Liberalism, and Democracy still more; but in spite of the Primrose League we are steadily advancing, and "J. B.," if he only puts his shoulder to the wheel, may find it not so hopeless as he appears to think in his own neighbourhood. When the first monthly issue of THE DEMOCRAT was issued I only knew of one beside myself who took it in, so I resolved to canvass it. Last month I got standing orders for 25 copies, and sold several over that number. I have now ordered 50 copies for each month, and am sure of selling them.-Yours truly, W. KEELING.

West Street, Midhurst, Sussex.

-:0:

ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS GEORGE LOVETT. We are glad to see that Mr. Walkinshaw's pungent letter in the September DEMOCRAT, has called forth abuse from his opponents; it shows that they are being pricked in their hearts, and that we may hope for their conversion. J. D. MCDADE (Pittsburgh, Pa.) writes: "The signs of the times manifest a hopeful awakening in the cause of Land Law Reform, as witness the nomination of Henry George for Mayor of New York, and the 47 by 42 vote on "Land Nationalisation at the Trades Congress, in Hull, England.

REV. H. M. KENNEDY, Vicar of Plumpton, Cumberland, writes to state that from personal experience he knows that the native Celts-those that were left of them-were by iniquitous laws compelled to pay for diminished holdings and lessened rights, excessive rents, again and again increased upon their own sole improvements.

[blocks in formation]

A REPORT too terrible to be believed comes from

Bombay; it is to the effect that the Duke of Connaught will probably succeed Sir Herbert Macpherson in the command of the Madras army. Of course, this means that the real commander, whoever he may be, would have to control the army and look after the Duke, just as our Prime Minister has to govern the country and please the Queen wherever she may be.

THE VALUE OF PUBLIC OPINION.-On Oct. 9th, 1886, Mr. Gladstone, writing to Rev. J. S. Jones, of Newport, Mon., said:"I hold it to be my duty to watch the currents of opinion in Parliament and the country with a view of using them for the best." This shows how practical statesmen are influenced by the expression of opinion, and that efforts in

that direction are not wasted.

TO OUR FRIENDS INTERESTED IN LAND LAW REFORM.-Mr. Wm. Cowling, author of "Copit Hall: a Tale of the Land Laws," is now delivering a course of lectures on "Our Land Laws and Labour Interests." Friends wishing to arrange for lectures on this subject can do so by communicating with Mr. Wm. Cowling, Mr. Woodcock's Office, Trinity House-lane, Hull,

LETTER FROM THE CHILDREN'S

DEMOCRAT.

MY DEAR CHILDREN,-If the Editor of THE DEMOCRAT can be so kind as to print them, I should like you to read two letters about my address to you in the October DEMOCRAT. I shall have a little to say to you about each of them.

To the Writer for Children in THE DEMOCRAT. SIR,-I am not in the habit of reading THE DEMOCRAT, but I happened to see your letter in the October number, addressed to children of the United Kingdom, and read your remarks at the conclusion, referring to what would be sufficient for the maintenance of a family during the whole time of the children's growing up. You appear to think all families alike in this respect. You evidently had only the cases of day-labourers, small shopkeepers, and artizans, in your head; houses where the babies are attended to by their own mothers and sisters, and where the housework (there can't be much of it) is done by the woman and children of the family. It is all very well to speak as you have done about what will maintain a family of that sort; but you addressed your letter to the children of the United Kingdom, and therefore you should not have left persons of consequence and families of distinction entirely out of the consideration. I can only say that it must be a rich person indeed who could afford to spend weekly what it will cost from beginning to end to maintain our family during the time of our children's growing-up. The food for them and the persons who have the charge of them and attend upon them, costs over £50 a month, and the expenses of their dress and education amount to considerably over £1,000 a year. nothing of Christmas and birthday parties, and journeys, and turns at the seaside, though these are things which, of course, we should not think of dispensing with.

say

I should recommend your taking a wider view of things before you write for the public, or else putting a more modest heading to your addresses. I don't advise your heading your letters (as one of my sons suggests), to the little scrubs and slaveys of the United Kingdom; but I think that in order to show where you are, and not to mislead, it would be as well to head them as addressed to children of the working classes.

I remain, Sir, yours, &c.,

CECILIA THICKSPREAD. Just now I have no room to say more than to tell you, my dear children, how amused I was that Mrs. Thickspread should think I had forgotten the children of consequence in my letter, because, what I really had forgotten were the children of no consequence.

Now for the other letter.

Dear Mr. Children's DEMOCRAT,-Dick Sampson came this morning and read us your letter to children in THE DEMOCRAT, and when he had done he looked at our baby in the coffin, and then he said, Poor little Queen. Mother couldn't feed the baby, she had a low fever hanging about her, and father brought the baby some milk every day when he came home from work, but by and bye the milk had to be sold earlier, and Bobby had to go for it, and Bobby when he came in with the milk burst

out crying, he was that done up with the long walk and with keeping himself from drinking the milk; mother said she knew that was it, though Bobby never said a word. Father said Bobby should have a drink of milk every day, but mother said it was too far off, and then father said Molly could go for it (that was me), and I should have a big piece of bread and butter for fetching it for him. But father got out of work, and Bobby couldn't have the milk, and baby died, and oh, Mr. children's DEMOCRAT, when I think about that big piece of bread and butter my head swims. But Bobby, he doesn't mind there not being so much bread in the house as there used to be; his mouth is very dry, poor Bobby; and he can manage without the milk, as we have got some water pretty near. But please tell me, how can babies be kings and queens when they haven't got lots of money.

I am, your little friend, MOLLY SHARPSET. I find I haven't time to write about these letters what I intended to write: please take care of them, my dear children, and perhaps next month we may talk them over.

I remain, your affectionate, DEMOCRAT.

-:0:

GLADSTONE AND IRISH LANDLORDS. Hear him in his speech:-He said, "I think it would be a most unfortunate day to witness the adoption of any legislation contemplating the extirpation from the country of the entire landlord class. The point is that landlords should remain in the country and do their duty there. And this I will say, that the framers of the Act of 1881 never contemplated their removal from the country, a removal which we believe would be injurious to that society of which they form a part."

Alas! Poor Ireland.

Alas! poor Ireland, even the eloquent advocate of your claims for justice has in his mind the lingering intention to fasten landlordism as a permanent institution amongst your people!

No, No, Mr. Gladstone!

No, Mr. Gladstone! Even without your help Ireland will put an end to landlordism in her soil. The landlords are nothing else than robbers. What is the coming to the tiller of the soil and demanding rent for God created land and the God created miracle of the abundant increase of forty grain of corn from one corn seed but an act of outrage and daring robbery? The landlord's character is in general grossly immoral, his position a tyrant, his property in the soil comes to him from those who murdered the former tillers of the soil and then took possession of the dwellings, cattle, and soil of the murdered. Talk of Irish outrages, indeed! The perpetrator of the moral outrage is he who comes with an armed band of hired cut-throats to the peasant's built cabin and ordering him out of his dwelling, throws his wife and children, bed and bedding, on to the roadside, quenches his hearth fire, and then orders his crowbar brigade to dismantle and pull down before his aching eyes the loved home in which he was born, in which his children were born, in which all that is dear to him for years abided.-The Irish World.

THE DEMOCRAT.

"THEY HAVE RIGHTS WHO DARE MAINTAIN THEM."

VOL. IV.-No. 97.

Political Earthquakes.

DECEMBER, 1886.

The Liberal party is rent in twain, because their leaders introduced measures opposed to Liberal principles. The Tory party is expecting disruption because the Leader of the House of Commons propounds schemes inconsistent with Tory ideas. The Liberal Ministry proposed government without representation and the purchase of Irish land. Lord Randolph Churchill has confounded the Tories by declining to sanction taxation without representation, and by refusing to continue taxes on the poor man's fire for the benefit of London landlords. The situation is curious, but not so important as it seems. The electors have been too intelligent and too independent to sanction retrograde proposals from Liberal authorities. The attitude of the Tory party is merely a farce, in which Churchill plays to the gallery and Salisbury to the boxes. Meanwhile the people have shown a wholesome power of protecting themselves, and therefore legislation can proceed only in a direction consistent with popular interests. Radicals have now a more promising field of action than was ever before presented to them in British politics.

Scenes at Sandringham.

We cannot but be amazed at the flunkeyism of the working men who streamed to Sandringham to present an address to the Prince of Wales because very ordinary proceedings had been taken in his name to bring a crowd to the Colonial Exhibition. If he were manager of the Exhibition it would be an absurdity to send two trains of working men to thank him for doing a simple duty. But it is a wellknown fact, and an inevitable circumstance,

PRICE TWOPENCE.

It is also a

that when a prince or a duke is placed at the head of affairs it becomes necessary for the real manager to manage the business, and to manage the prince or the duke. well-known fact, and one abundantly realised by our colonists, that the headship of the Prince of Wales involved so much cost and flunkeyism that confidence has been destroyed and progress has been made almost impossible.

Some of the names on the list of visitors to the Prince of Wales do not create surprise, as they belong to men who would go almost anywhere for a glass of brandy; but that Mr. Henry Broadhurst and Mr. George Shipton should have demeaned themselves by going on such an errand is a degradation to the trades unions which they represent.

The Crofter Deputation to Mr. Balfour. This deputation was a much more important matter than it would appear from the reports in the daily papers. Some wholesome truths were put before Mr. Balfour, and it was clear that he did not like them. His perceptive faculties have never been in a sound condition, and respecting atrocities he is actually blind. When he mentioned that the sum demanded by idle landlords for a right to live in the Isle of Skye was twenty thousand pounds per annum, he ought to have blushed to the roots of his hair, but he did not. He seemed to think that the fact was a subject for congratulation, although he knows that to get that sum the rents have been increased threefold within thirty years. It is significant that the Government are severe in Scotland while comparatively lenient in Ireland. It is not difficult to understand the reason.

Ireland sends 86 working

« НазадПродовжити »