and lectures. Says Mr. Mulhall, the wealth of the country has quadrupled, while the population has doubled, since the Waterloo era.

Seeing how successful agitation attended with violence has of late years proved itself to be in this country, we are tempted to inquire whether there can be any connection between violence and success in the attainment of political objects. We trust not. It would be a sad day for England if such an idea were ever to take possession of the minds of the people; and yet it would appear from recent events as if there were cause for such fear.-Lord Brabazon in "Nineteenth Century" for October, 1882.

Sir R. A. Cross, speaking at Barrow on behalf of the Foreign Missions connected with the Church of England, made a strong appeal to his hearers to do what they could to support those agencies. He said it was not only the duty of this great empire, on which the sun never sets, to do all that was possible to Christianise the world, but of every individual to take an interest in the work. He strongly urged a little self-denial on the part of individuals to do something for and give something to the missions.

We should be very glad if Sir R. A. Cross and other statesmen would pay more attention to the Christianising of the country in which they live. Whilst he is endeavouring to Christianise "the world," the conditions under which the masses of his fellow-countrymen live are such as to make it impossible for them to lead decent, let alone Christian, lives.

At Highgate William Cooper and Elizabeth Johnson, having no fixed place of residence, were charged with sleeping in the open air, without having any visible means of subsistence. The magistrates had determined to put a stop to this sort of thing, and sentenced the prisoners to three months' hard labour. Certainly the action of the magistrates will put a stop to the offence (that of being houseless and without food) for the period of three months, but we fail to see how the course adopted by the magistrates will operate in the requisite direction after the expiration of that period. As a rule, people do not find a house and means of subsistence more readily obtainable after a period of penal hard labour. somewhat similar offence was recorded many years ago; see Matt. viii., 20.

A

Mr. Thomas Hughes has arrived at New York in the Bothnia, accompanied by seven English gentlemen. Mr. Hughes left immediately for Rugby, as he had to be quick in visiting his Tennessee colony, as his court opens in October. He had brought some choice seeds from London suitable for the gardens of the Cumberland plateau.

The Echo has analysed the composition of the Liberty and Property Defence League. Landlords, alarmed by the circulation of "Progress and Poverty," seem to have started the company, but they were quickly joined by railway directors, shipowners, pawnbrokers, publicans, and music-hall proprietors. The total number of acres owned by twenty-one members of the League is 2,105,401, or an average of 10,000 acres each. This is a large amount of property to have only twenty-one gentlemen to defend it, but combination will do wonders. Railway directors are in full force, with Sir E. Watkin, of South-Eastern fame, at their head.

Our contemporary sums up as follows:-"Labour representatives are conspicuous by their absence. The names of these gentlemen and their official positions are sufficiently indicative of their intentions. Lord Wemyss and the Duke of Sutherland mean no land reform, Sir Edward Watkin and Lord Brabourne mean no cheap trains and no linit to the right of overcrowding; Mr. Glover and Mr. Dixon mean no further legislation for the protection of

seamen; Sir George Elliot and Mr. Denning mean no amendment of the Employer's Liability Act; Captain Hamber, of the Morning Advertiser, means no revision of the Licensing Laws; but the people mean to have every one of these things, in spite of the landlords and the capitalists, and in spite even of the publicans and the pawnbrokers.

A labouring man, residing at Snainton, worked at a village near Brompton, and wishing to live nearer his work, he applied to Mr. Digby Cayley, who acts as the representative of his father, Sir Digby Cayley, of Brompton Hall, for a house that was to let at Brompton. The following is the reply which was received ::

"Brompton, York, Feb. 6, 1883.

"Mr. Snainton, "Sir, I have made inquiries about you, and find you belong to the Primitive Methodist Connexion. "Sir Digby will not accept any new tenants that belong to that Connexion, so I cannot offer you the house you apply for. "DIGBY CAYLEY, JR."

The procession of the Labour Clubs' Union in New York was reviewed at Union-square by Patrick Lord, A. Doni, Louis Post, Henry George, John Swinton, and others. Newspapers differ in their estimate of the numbers present.

The Commercial says 20,000; The Post 10,000; Mail and Express. 20,000. The banners bore the following devices "The Wage System makes us Slaves,' "" Down with Oppressive Capital,' Prepare for the coming Revolution," "No Tenement House Work," "Workers in the Tenements, Idlers in the Brown Stone Fronts."

From these inscriptions, it will be seen that the feeling against the American "boss" capitalists is rapidly increas ing amongst the working classes in the United States. Five banners, inscribed "Jay Gould must go," were also carried at the head of the procession on September 5. Jay Gould is one of the most wealthy of the present race of railroad and telegraph kings, whose gigantic accumulations of wealth are threatening to bring on America a revolution worse than any yet seen.

At the time of the procession Jay Gould was giving evidence before the Senate Committee on Labour. Talking of strikes, he said :--"Strikes generally come from the poorest class of labour; the best men don't care how many hours they work; they are looking to get higher up in the ranks-to own and control a business. My observation is, that if you leave capital and labour alone they come together and regulate themselves; it is those people who imagine they can regulate everything according to their own standard that make the trouble. You must remember that if you raise wages to a point where it is unprofitable to conduct manufactures, the manufacturers will go elsewhere, to the injury of the country."

From his concluding evidence Mr. Jay Gould appears as the liberty and property defender. He says with regard to legislation against monopolies, "I don't think we need any legislation at all. We are all working together to demonstrate that the present form of government is a success. We are making history; we are all working together, the rich man and the poor man, to make our institutions a success." In another column will be found Henry George's estimate of the success of American institutions, and of the sort of history the Vanderbilts, Goulds, and Astors are making.

The Guild of St. Matthew held their annual meeting on 25th September. After the business had been transacted, Rev. C. E. Escreet moved a resolution protesting against the exclusion of Mr. Bradlaugh from the House of Commons, and Rev. H. C. Shuttleworth moved another resolution protesting against the continued imprisonment of Messrs. Foote and Ramsey. Both resolutions were carried.

The licensed victuallers, whose motto is "Beer and Bible," are beginning to get frightened at the strides temperance is inaking in the Church of England. At a meeting of licensed victuallers, at Bournemouth, Mr. Marston, a brewer, threatened the Church that unless it was careful, and restrained its fanatics, "Beer" would desert the "Bible," as personified by the Established Church, and would go in for disestablishment, which the speaker believed would be speedily brought about by the influence of publicans. Unfortunately for the brewers, the advocates of temperance in the Church of England are not, as a rule, the men who fear disestablishment. We do not imagine threats will influence such men as Canon Wilberforce and Rev. J. W. Horseley.

At the British Association Mr. Hyde Clarke read a paper on the rise and progress of the town of Barrow-inFurness. He stated that from 40,000 to 50,000 acres of fertile land were lying waste there, though well capablo of cultivation, because of a disagreement between the Crown and the Duchy of Lancaster, which seems rather like a disagreement between a right and left leg. The country, however, is the sufferer, and we commend Mr. Clark's paper to those people who will not believe that fertile lands are lying waste, and scoff at the proposals made by the Democratic Federation for Home Colonisation, and State organisation of labour on waste lands.

At a general court of the proprietors of the Bank of England Mr. Guedalla wished to congratulate the proprietors on the improvement that had been made in the business of the Bank, by which they had secured a greater control of the money market and rate of interest than before.

This means, in plain language, that a few individuals have the power of using for their own especial benefit the credit of the nation, and having command of the currency of the country, can extract from the workers a larger percentage in the shape of interest by withholding the necessary cash from circulation. It is an extraordinary thing that the nation should voluntarily allow its credit to be used by individuals for their own private advantage by the Bank of England and the other joint stock and private banks. The currency question requires a great deal of threshing out.

PROBLEMS OF THE TIME.
BY HENRY GEORGE.
II.

POLITICAL PROBLEMS IN THE UNITED STATES.

THE American Republic is to-day unquestionably foremost of the nations-the van leader of modern civilisation. Of all the great peoples of the European family, her people are the most homogeneous, the most active, and most assimilative. Their average standard of intelligence and comfort is higher they have most fully adopted modern industrial improvements, and are the quickest to utilise discovery and invention; their political institutions are most in accordance with modern ideas, their position exempts them from dangers and difficulties besetting the European nations, and a vast area of unoccupied land gives

them room to grow.

At the rate of increase so far maintained, the Englishspeaking people of America will, by the close of the century, number nearly one hundred millions-a population as large as owned the sway of Rome in her palmiest days. By the middle of the next century-a time which children now born will live to see-they will, at the same rate, number more than the present population of Europe; and by its close nearly equal the population which. at the beginning of this century, the whole carth was believed to contain.

But the increase of power is more rapid than the increase of population, and goes on in accelerating progression. Discovery and invention stimulate discovery and invention; and it is only when we consider that the industrial progress of the last fifty years bids fair to pale before the achievements of the next that we can vaguely imagine the future that seems opening before the American people. The centre of wealth, of art, of luxury, and learning must pass to this side of the Atlantic, even before the centre of population. It seems as if this continent had been reserved--shrouded for ages from the rest of the world-as the field upon which European civilisation might freely bloom. And for the very reason that our growth is so rapid, and our progress so swift; for the very reason that all the tendencies of modern civilisation assert themselves here more quickly and strongly than anywhere else, the problems which modern civilisation must meet will here first fully present themselves, and will most imperiously demand to be thought out or fought out.

It is difficult for anyone to turn from the history of the past to think of the incomparable greatness promised by the rapid growth of the United States without something of awe-something of that feeling which induced Amasis of Egypt to dissolve his alliance with the successful Polycrates, because "the gods do not permit to mortals continued prosperity." Of this, at least, we may be certain; the rapidity of our development brings dangers that can only be guarded against by alert intelligence and earnest patriotism.

There is a significant fact that strikes us as we think over the history of past eras and preceding civilisations. The great wealthy and powerful nations have always lost their freedom; it is only in small, poor, and isolated communities that Liberty has been maintained. So true is this, that the poets have always sung that Liberty loves the rocks and the mountains; that she shrinks from wealth and power and splendour, from the crowded city and the busy mart. So true is this, that philosophical historians have sought to find in the richness of material resources the causes of the corruption and enslavement of peoples.

Liberty is natural. Primitive perceptions are of the equal rights of the citizen, and political organisation always starts from this basis. It is as social development goes on that we find power concentrating, and institutions based upon the equality of rights passing into institutions which make the many the slaves of the few. How this is we may see. In all institutions which involve the lodgment of governing power there is, with social growth, a tendency to the exaltation of their function and the centralisation of their power, and in the stronger of these to the absorption of the powers of the rest. Thus the tendency of social growth is to make government the business of a special class. And as members increase so does the power and importance of each become less and less as compared with that of all, and government tends to pass beyond the scrutiny and control of the masses. The leader of a handful of warriors, or head man of a little village, can only command or govern by common consent, and anyone aggrieved can readily appeal to his fellows. But when the tribe becomes a nation and the village expands to a populous country, the powers of the chieftain, without formal addition, become practically much greater. For with increase of numbers scrutiny of his acts becomes more difficult, it is harder and harder to successfully appeal from them, and the aggregate power which he directs becomes irresistible as against individuals. And gradually, as power thus concentrates, primitive ideas are lost, and the habit of thought grows up which regards the masses as born but for the service of their rulers.

Thus the growth of society involves danger to the gradual conversion of government into something independent of and beyond the people, and the gradual seizure of its

powers by a ruling class-though not necessarily a class marked off by personal titles and a hereditary status do not accompany the concentration of powers, but follow it. The same methods which, in a little town where each knows his neighbour and matters of common interest are under the common eye, enable the citizens to freely govern themselves, may, in a great city, as we have in many cases seen, enable an organised ring of plunderers to gain and hold the government. So, too, as we see in Congress, and even in our State Legislatures, the growth of the country and the greater number of interests make the proportion of the votes of a representative, of which his constituents know or care to know, less and less. And so, too, the executive and judicial departments tend constantly to pass beyond the scrutiny of the people.

But to the changes produced by growth are, with us, added the changes brought about by improved industrial methods. The tendency of steam and of machinery is to the division of labour, to the concentration of wealth and power. Workmen are becoming massed by hundreds and thousands in the employ of single individuals and firms; small storekeepers and merchants are becoming the clerks and salesmen of great business houses: we have already corporations whose revenues and pay-rolls belittle those of the greatest States. And with this concentration grows the facility of combination among these great business interests. How readily the railroad companies, the coal operators, the steel producers, even the match manufacturers, combine, either to regulate prices or to use the powers of government! The tendency in all branches of industry is to the formation of rings against which the individual is helpless, and which exert their power upon government whenever their interests may thus be served. It is not merely positively, but negatively, that great aggregations of wealth, whether individual or corporate, tend to corrupt government and take it out of the control of the masses of the people. "Nothing is more timorous than a million dollars-except two million dollars." Great wealth always supports the party in power. no matter how corrupt it may be. It never exerts itself for reform, for it instinctively fears change. It never struggles against misgovernment. When threatened by the holders of political power it does not agitate. nor appeal to the people it buys them off. It is in this way, no less than by its direct interference, that aggregated wealth corrupts government, and helps to make politics a trade. organised lobbies, both Legislative and Congressional, rely as much upon the fears as upon the hopes of moneyed interests. When "business" is dull their resource is to get up a Bill which some moneyed interest will pay them to beat. So, too, these large moneyed interests will subscribe to political funds, on the principle of keeping on the right side of those in power, just as railroad companies deadhead President Arthur when he goes to Florida to fish.

Our

The more corrupt a government the easier wealth can use it. Where legislation is to be bought, the rich make the laws; where justice is to be purchased, the rich have the ear of the courts. And if, for this reason, great wealth does not absolutely prefer corrupt government to pure government, it becomes none the less a corrupting influence. A community composed of very rich and very poor falls an easy prey to whoever can seize power. The very poor have not spirit and intelligence enough to resist ; the very rich have too much at stake.

The rise in the United States of monstrous fortunes, the aggregation of enormous wealth in the hands of corporations, necessarily implies the loss by the people of governmental control. Democratic forms may be maintained, but there can be as much tyranny and misgovernment under democratic forms as any other-in fact, they lend themselves most readily to tyranny and misgovernment. Forms count for little. The Romans expelled their kings, and continued to abhor the very name of king. But under the name Caesars and Imperators, they at first meant

no more than our "Boss," they crouched before tyrants more absolute than kings. We have already, under the popular name of "bosses," developed political Cæsars in municipalities and States. If this development continues, in time there will come a national boss. We are young; but we are growing. The day may arrive when the" Boss of America" will be to the modern world what the Cæsar was to the Roman world. This, at least, is certain: Democratic government in more than name can only exist where wealth is distributed with something like equality-where the great mass of citizens are personally free and independent, neither fettered by their poverty, nor shackled by their wealth. There is, after all, some sense in a property qualification. The man who is dependent on a master for his living is not a free man. To give the suffrage to slaves is only to give votes to their owners. That universal suffrage may add to, instead of decreasing, the power of wealth we see when mill-owners and mineoperators vote their hands. The freedom to earn, without fear or favour, a comfortable living, ought to go with the freedom to vote. How can a man be said to have a country where he has no right to a square inch of soil; where he has nothing but his hands, and, urged by starvation, must bid against his fellows for the privilege of using them? When it comes to voting tramps, some principle has been carried to a ridiculous and dangerous extreme. I have known elections to be decided by the carting of paupers from the almshouse to the polls. But such decisions can scarcely be in the interest of good government.

Beneath all political problems lies the social problem of the distribution of wealth. This our people do not generally recognise, and they listen to quacks who propose to cure the symptoms without touching the disease. 'Let us elect good men to office." say the quacks. Yes; let us catch little birds by sprinkling salt on their tails!

It behoves to look facts in the face. The experiment of popular government in the United States is clearly a failure. Not yet, perhaps, a failure everywhere and in everything. But an experiment of this kind does not have to be fully worked out to be proved a failure. Speaking generally of the whole country. from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and from the Lakes to the Gulf, our government by the people has in large degree become, is in larger degree becoming, government by the strong and unscrupulous.

The people, of course, continue to vote: but the people are losing their power. Money and organisation tell more and more in elections. In some sections bribery has become chronic, and numbers of voters expect regularly to sell their votes. In some sections large employers regularly bulldoze their hands into voting as they wish. In municipal, State, and Federal politics the power of the "machine" is increasing. In many places it has become so strong that the ordinary citizen has no more influence in the government under which he lives than he would have in China. He is not one of the governing classes, but one of the governed. He occasionally, in disgust, votes for the other man," or 66 the other party "; but, generally, to find that he has only effected a change of masters; or secured the same masters under different And he is beginning to accept the situation. and to leave politics to politicians, as something with which an honest, self-respecting man cannot afford to meddle.

names.

We are steadily differentiating a governing class, or rather a class of Prætorians, who make a business of gaining political power and then selling it. The type of the rising party leader is not the orator or statesman of an earlier day, but the shrewd manager, who knows how to handle the workers, how to combine pecuniary interests, how to obtain money and to spend it, how to gather to himself followers and to secure their allegiance. One party machine is becoming complementary to the other party machine, the politicians, like the railroad managers, having discovered that combination pays better than competition. So rings are made impregnable, and great

and as "X. Y. Z." points out, the owners of sheep are thus enabled to live on the product not of their own exertion, but of Nature's exertion. This innate power of increase is not capital, but "land," and the owner of it is a landowner, for the term land includes "all natural forces and opportunities." Land is not merely a workshop, with a supply of raw material to be wrought up by labour into wealth; it is also an active force, which is constantly transmitting inert matter into wealth; and this vital force is appropriated by capitalists, who divide the spoil in proportion to the quantity of their several stocks. Truly, to him that hath shall be given!

I cannot help thinking that the present system of interest is as monstrous as private property in the soil. It is private property in land." It is the monopoly by some men of a part of Nature that belongs equally to

all.

Nottingham, September 19, 1883.

T. M.

To the Editor of the CHRISTIAN SOCIALIST. SIR, It is somewhat surprising to see with what apathy the statesmen of America look upon the system of reckless land speculation which is going on in that country. The condition of millions of acres of once good land is (and will be more so in the future) deplorable. Private individuals and large companies are farming thousands of acres of virgin soil, and working these bonanza farms to their utmost limit of production.

After growing wheat continuously for some years, and using all modern appliances, until this once fertile soil becomes quite exhausted, these killers of the soil seek “fresh fields and pastures new," and probably their impoverished land comes into the market, or, it may be, leased to some unfortunate greenhorn from the old country. It must be plain even to the most ignorant observer, that if this reckless system is to continue, even the land of the boasted "land of freedom" will be closed to the people before many years are passed. If the land is to be locked up in the hands of a few grasping speculators, the sooner the Legislature recognises the fact, and introduces some restrictive measures, the better.

In our own colonies, too, the same accumulation of the lands in the hands of a few holders is producing an effect upon the people, who are beginning to complain against such a policy. As an instance of what the papers say on the subject, I subjoin the following, taken from the Queensland Figaro, for June last :-"I ask my readers to glance at the following list of four representative specimens of the present squattocracy of Queensland.

"In the unsettled districts

"Wilson and De Satge hold in the Gregory North 5,119 square miles of country.

"Jones, Green, and Sullivan hold in the Warrego 4,176 square miles of country.

"James Tyson holds in the Warrego 3,600 square miles of country.

"Edward Wienholt holds in Gregory North 3,142 square miles of country.

16,037 square miles-or 10,263,680 acres, in the unsettled districts, held by four firms! Besides this, in the settled districts, Edward Wienholt owns the stations of Jondaryan, Fassifern, Degilbo, and Tarampa, and goodness knows what liens he may have on other stations and settlers."

Further comment is unnecessary. Facts and figures, when well authenticated, should speak for themselves.I am, Sir, yours truly, GEO. WILSON.

229, Walton-street, Newington, Hull.

To the Editor of the CHRISTIAN SOCIALIST. SIR, I wish to call your attention to the action of the Barton Regis Board of Guardians, as shown in the following paragraph:

66 THE ELECTION OF GUARDIANS.

it was resolved, by 20 votes to 4, to adopt the following memorial to the Local Government Board:-"To the President of the Local Government Board. The memorial of the Guardians of the Poor of the Barton Regis Union, partly in the City and County of Bristol, and partly in the County of Gloucester, showeth-That in the opinion of this Board no alteration in the present system of voting for election of guardians is desirable. That the office of guardian being a very important and responsible one, the most able and respectable ratepayers in the several parishes are the proper persons to hold the same, and should be elected for three years, instead of one year, as now. That if the ballot were introduced, the vote of a ratepayer paying a poor-rate of one shilling, or, say, just removed from pauperism, would neutralise the vote of the largest property owner or ratepayer in the parish; and, as the working class are the most numerous in every parish, this Board is of opinion it would be most unfair and unjust. That large ratepayers are the most fit and proper persons to be entrusted with the distribution of relief, to the cost of which they so largely contribute; while the necessities and comforts of the really deserving poor are most likely to be favourably considered by persons of responsible status than of those in a lower condition of life.

"An amendment by Mr. Palmer, seconded by Mr. Bastow, that the clauses of the memorial should be considered seriatim was rejected."

This plainly shows the need of the people having things fully under their control, to check the arrogance and dictatorship of elected persons, whose authority can only come from the people who placed them in their offices. It requires constant watching in all departments on the part of the people, to see that their servants do not abuse the power entrusted to them. The old Conservative notion of the "rights and power" of the money-bags to vote and control all, and stamp out Democracy, shows itself once more in this Board of Guardians.

It is the present unrighteous system of monopolies which makes the poor.

I am pleased to inform you that the Bristol Radical Reform Association has taken the matter up, and are going to hold indignation meetings to protest against the guardians' memorial.-Yours truly, R. S. Bristol, Sept. 21,

66

PATERNAL AFFECTION OF A "Boss."-We are told a story of how Mr. George Gould acted when advised by his father, who had learnt that he had been speculating, and along a path widely diverging from that the parent was going. Why don't you ask me?" said Jay. I suppose you would not tell me," George replied. "Well, if you want to make money," the father added, "go and sell such a stock; "--and George went-but bought. When they met at dinner that day, as the stock had had a big rise, Gould asked slyly, "How did you get on, George?" Finely," said the lad cheerfully. "But the stock rose,' remarked Gould with surprise, "Can you suppose I sold!" exclaimed George. There is nothing experienced speculators more distrust than the "tips," and "winks," and "nudges," of the rich operators who are in the fleecing business. Anglo-American Times.

66

How much longer shall we continue to allow generation after generation to be taught crime from their infancy, and when so taught treat them like beasts of the forests, until they are entangled beyond escape in the toils and nets of the law? When, if the circumstances of those poor unpitied sufferers had been reversed with those who are even surrounded with the pomp and dignity of justice, these latter would have been at the bar of the culprit, and the former would have been at the judgment seat.—Robert