TREACHERY AND MURDER.	LAND NATIONALISATION
THE rulers of America threaten the world with two fresh outrages upon humanity.     In America, as in some other unhappy lands, there are certain ambitious individuals who take upon themselves to pose as servants, representatives, and guardians of their fellows. And in America, as elsewhere, these officious persons serve, represent, and guard nothing and nobody except property and property monopolists.     A hundred years ago they made a set of rules for this purpose, called the Constitution. Mr. Gladstone says it is the finest thing of the sort devised by man. In accordance with these rules the great mass of American citizens have submitted for one hundred years to have the fruits of their labour stolen from them by a handful of monopolists.     But the spirit of revolt is stirring amongst the wage-slaves of the world. Rulers and monopolists are beginning to tremble; to join hands for mutual support; to catch at every pretest to cow the masses --those of "free" America amongst the rest.     Eighteen months ago the victims of capital in Chicago rebelled. The majority did not dare go to the root of the matter and claim free use of the land they had tilled and the machinery they had made. They only struck for a little larger share of the wealth they created, but they were bold and determined, and amongst them were men like our Anarchist comrades, who fully faced the facts.     Like Irish landlords, the American capitalists stuck at no means to crush the people. The Chicago police batoned and fired upon the strikers with as much good-will as Mitchelstown constables. A public meeting was summoned to protest. It was peacefully dispersing when the police made ready to charge the people. At that moment a bomb exploded in the police ranks.     Who flung the bomb remains unknown. The police themselves recognise that it was not thrown by any one of the Anarchists accused; and certainly not by the eight together who have been prosecuted for "conspiracy"; that is, plainly speaking, for the Anarchist ideas they have spread. But in America justice, like the opinion of the press, is for the highest bidder. The Chicago capitalists spent £20,000 on the jury, that men whom they hated for seeing and speaking the truth might be condemned to death.     Last month the judges, sitting this time in the Supreme Court of Illinois, confirmed the sentence which condemns seven honest men after eighteen months' imprisonment, to hang for their opinions. Our comrades, one of whom is an Englishman, are to be murdered in cold blood, not because they took up arms against the police, but simply because they are Anarchists enemies of authority and property.     Whilst the capitalist-ridden American Republic is thus outbidding English Tories in the war of authority against freedom of speech and public meeting, it is stealthily extending a finger across the ocean to support the vilest despotism in Europe. An Extradition Treaty with Russia is to be quietly slipped through Congress: a treaty to deliver up any Russian refugee who has publicly protested, by word or deed against a Government which mercilessly crushes out every sort of freedom of thought, speech, and action amongst its unfortunate subjects.     Truly in spirit all governments are alike: official defenders of tyranny and injustice in society, who have managed to surround their vile office with a halo of superstitious reverence in the eyes of the masses. Empires. monarchies, republics, autocracies, aristocracies democracies--they are one and the same. Unscrupulous enemies of human development and social freedom. Armed guardians of every unfair privilege, every evil i : sy stem, every oppressive institution which has grown up amongst me ., Hinderers of progress, from whom space for every social advance m ust be extorted by perpetual protest, perpetual revolt, at the cost of the best lives of the community.     When shall we learn, not to alter the form of government, but to do without government altogether? Notice. - Public Meeting organised by the Socialists of London will be held at South Place l Institute on Friday October 14, at 8 o'clock p.m., to protest against the murder of the Chicago Anarchists. A meeting of protest will also be held at Cleveland Hall, Oct. 7, at 8 p.m.	THE rupture between Henry George and the American Socialists at the Syracuse Convention whence the Social-Democrat delegates were excluded, will deeply afflict many of Henry George's supporters in this country. Having received from his powerful attacks against the idle land-grabbers their first impulse towards Socialism, and having seen in him one of those who undoubtedly have contributed towards preparing the ground for Socialist ideas in this country, they will be grieved to see the man whom they considered as an earnest champion of the oppressed, turning now his back on the workers and entering into a union with the middle-class.     For a union with the middle-class it was, this Syracuse convention of the United Labour Party, at which Labour was not represented, even by a feeble minority; while lawyers (fourteen lawyers!), doctors, parsons, employers, and grocers fully represented all fractions of the middle-classes Its platform is a middle-class platform throughout.     Many of Henry George's supporters will be deeply grieved at what they will consider as his new departure. But if they now revert to what was the real meaning of his teachings since the very first day he began to expound them, they will see that his present tactics constitute no new departure at all; and they will understand why the middle-classes have shown, from the beginning, so much sympathy with his teachings. The present position of Henry George is a logical development of the ideas he has professed since his first start; and the whole doctrine of land nationalisation--as it has been expounded and professed in this country--never was anything but a theory inspired by the desire of the middle-classes to have the lion's share in the profits and political importance derived from the possession of land. What we say now is not new; many years since, comrade Hyndman powerfully exposed the defects of the land nationalisation schemes; and neither Social-Democrats nor Anarchists have entertained delusions as to their real meaning.     When the land-nationalisers denounce the idlers who pocket the surplus-value given to land by the aggregate efforts of the whole of the nation, one can but fully agree with them. But one is inclined to ask, why they, who are so keenly conscious of the evils of private appropriation of land and so boldly denounce them, are so blind as not to perceive the evils which have arisen in our industrial and trading century from the appropriation by the few of the unearned increment on the industrial field? How is it to be explained that the identity of the two means of appropriating for the rich the fruits of the labour of the poor escapes them, while it is clear even to the most bourgeois of writers? and how is it that they continue to launch their thunders against one class only of the two great classes of exploiters?     The rank and file of the land-nationalisers-those honest workers who earnestly believe that land nationalisation is preached in the interest of the workers do not understand how anybody can denounce the land-grabber, only that he may the better become a land-grabber himself, and they answer to these questions, "Let us only undermine the landed property, its evils are better felt and understood; then the capitalist oppression will receive a mortal blow at the same time."     Immense illusion! because the real result of the land nationalisation schemes would be to divert from the middle-classes the blow which the working-classes are preparing to strike at their exploiters, and to direct tit to their only competitor in exploiting--the landlord. During the Chartist movement the workman was used by the middle-classes to snatch away the political power from the landed aristocracy. Now he is to be used to snatch from them the land, and to hand over this real foundation of all power to the middle-classes.     The rank and file are too honest to see it; but the leaders know well that it is precisely so. And H. George himself is not mistaken on the subject. In his last leader in the Standard (September 10th) he openly says: " It is evident that the change would profit the capitalists and labourers," and he goes so far as to argue that "we have few capitalists who are not labourers."     The bourgeois leaders of the land nationalisation movement are perfectly aware that their scheme would first profit capitalists, just because it would increase the range covered by capital and we know on that everything which profits capitalists and widens the field of their : powers will ultimately result in a further enslaving of the workmen.     In fact, two separate things must be distinguished in land nationalisation schemes: the title, and the contents; the banner with its fine inscription, and the merchandise covered with the banner.
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The banner which bears the words "Land Nationalisation" may be indicative of a grand aim; but all depends upon what is understood by land nationalisation. It may mean the nation taking possession of the land; everybody entitled to till the soil if he likes, everybody entitled freely to organise in order to produce plenty of food for humanity. It may mean also and so it did in France by the end of the last century--the State confiscating the estates of the priests and nobles, and selling them to those who have the money to buy; that is partly to peasants, but chiefly to the "Black Bands " of 1793, the bands of money-grabbers enriched by speculating on the people's starvation, or on card-board soled shoes supplied to the armies of the Republic. It may mean even less, and so indeed it does, for in the mouths of our Land Restorers and Nationalisers it simply means this: Everything remains as it is. But a Parliament converted to the ideas of land nationalisation imposes heavy taxes on land values, and thus compels the rascal lords to sell their estates. That is the bottom of all land nationalisation schemes, nothing else has been preached by their supporters.     No revolution, of course, no sudden changes. No expropriation of manufactures, or railways; that would spoil the scheme. The East. end people must continue to starve, and the West- end people to squander the money; cottagers' families must continue to live on nine shillings a-week; parliament be elected as it is now, money remain almighty; but the landlords are to be compelled by the said parliament to sell their estates.     The dream of the turnip-jam cotton-silk, and poisoned beer manufacturers is realised. One poor furniture-millionaire who died the other day, notwithstanding his millions, never could attain his ideal of being proprietor of a " Shaftesbury Castle " and invite hunting parties there ! All his life long he was compelled to stamp his note-paper merely "Three Poplar's Mansion!" Why did he not live on until the land taxation scheme of the supposed Land Nationalisers had become a reality ? But the retired butcher next door hopes not to die without having seen it, and then he will finally buy the long-coveted corner of the park on the top of the hill, and erect there his castle decorated with his leg-of-mutton arms. I understand that he, too, is a Land Nationaliser! The nation--it is he, and the nationalisation is nothing but a taxation which will permit him, too, to have a park and a castle. He can pay the Georgite taxes for the corner of the park while Lord So-and-So is enable to pay them for the whole of the park.     And, while our furniture-millionaire's and our retired butcher's will peaceably enjoy life in their mansions, creating twenty parks where there was one, the remainder of the land will be bought by capital-owners who are now at their wit's end where to invest their capital and a new landed aristocracy as bad as the old one will issue from the scheme The bourgeois will become the owner of the land, the manufactures, the railways, the trade!     Maybe, the amount of cultivated land and of corn grown in this country will increase. There will be no need to import so much corn as we do now. But, will the workmen be better paid for his labour? Who will pay the land-taxes--who can pay any taxes at all if it is not the producer of wealth, the labourer who pays them with his labour? And if he dares to claim more than nine shillings a-week, can he not be ousted by Chinese and Hindoos who will be satisfied with three shillings a-week ? Can the labourer who has no capital beyond his own hands afford to compete with the capital-owners in the prices they will offer to the State, in case the State should retain its rights in land, and rent it to the person who offers most for it ? Can the labourer compete with the capitalist, who can afford to pay more because he can get good machinery, and import Chinese to serve it, with the money stolen from the workman's pocket?     The middle-classes have understood at once that the land nationalisation scheme, being a mere scheme of land taxation, is much to their profit. Therefore, their tenderness to the scheme and their harshness to Socialism. What a pity that so many honest workers, led by loud phrases of sympathy and by the word Nationalisation inscribed on the banner, have followed the Land Reformer's day without asking themselves, What does it cover?     We are not grieved about what is described as a new departure of the Land Nationalisers. There is no new departure at all; they have remained what they were, advocates of land taxation. Feeling hindered by their Socialist tail, they have merely cut it off. That in all. Those honest workers who joined their leagues for their banner's sake without inquiring more closely into the real content of their teachings, surely will be grieved by their own mistake. But they will profit by the lesson.     They will know that the great words, Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity, Home Rule, Radicalism, Socialism, and Anarchism, may be mere words. All depends upon the contents, and they will see that the contents may be best judged by the means proposed to attain the end.     Shabby means imply a shabby end. Those who propose to change all the present state of society,, put an end to oppression, put an end to poverty, regenerate social life by a few shabby means-whatever the title they assume-have no grand end before them. They usurp grand names to cover the hollowness of their contents. NOTES.     THE Trades' Union Congress of workers at Swansea and the British Association of middle-class professors and scientists at Manchester were both agreed that the enormous powers we have gained over the forces of nature during the fact century or so has worked us much mischief. The health and manhood of the nation is being destroyed, moan the philosophers. The uncertainty of the	workmen's life is becoming intolerable, growl the unionists And both acknowledge our wealth as She cause. But neither have the pluck to go to the root of the matter and ray right out that it is the monopoly of wealth in the form of property that does all the harm.     The combination of railway companies prevents the 900 men who took a leading, part m the Midland strike from getting employment. They are driven to ask alms to enable them to emigrate.. Strikes can do very little good unless the men are prepared to do something more than allow themselves to be starved.     The Irish are still leading the van of the fight for freedom.. They mat the intrusion and hustling of the police at Mitchelstown and vindicated the right of public meeting at Ennis as fearlessly as if they had not been robbed,, murdered and ground down for many hundred years by the Saxon conquerors. They have suffered the worst from England's cruel hate. Their real danger DOW lies in her yet more cruel love. The too confiding and affectionate peasants have delivered themselves over into the hands of English politicians, only to be deceived in the future as they have been oppressed m the pass     After eight and a half years of energetic and increasingly successful propaganda, our brother-in-arms, Le Revolte has been forced to disappear. The Spartan virtue of the French Republic, which licences gaming-tables as a source of revenue in Tonquin,, has been offended by an advertisement in Le Revolte in which a group of Parisian Anarchists announced an unauthorised lottery m aid of the Anti-Patriotic League! Accordingly comrades Meraeu, manager of Le Revolte, and Bidault, secretary of the League, were condemned by the Paris Court of Appeal on September 3rd to a fine of £25 each and costs, as well as fifteen days' imprisonment and five years, loss of civil rights. Our comrades have no spare cash to waste in subsidising governments.. They refuse to pay, and the paper disappears.     The place of Le Revolte (The Rebel) has been taken by La Revolte (Rebellion), a Communist-Anarchist paper, which will carry on the struggle against authority and property in a like spirit and with the aid of the same contributors. We trust that our new comrade may live to see the Social Revolution for which it is helping to pave the way.     We also wish success to L 'Idee e Ouvriere . a new weekly Anarchist paper which appeared last month at Havre,, and to Il Schiavo, b journal of like principles Published at Nice.: The latter has initiated a new departure in journalism. It is supplied gratis, and instead of payment comrades are asked to help to meet the expenses according to their ability. A CRITIC OF ANARCHISM. (BY A NON-ANARCHIST CORRESPONDENT.)     "When Anarchism was first heard of in the Socialist movement in England, it was welcomed a& a protest against the insane disregard of the lessons of political experience a& to personal liberty apparent in some Collectivist ideals. But it ha& since developed into a doctrine of unmitigated individualism, having for it& economic basis an invincible ignorance of the late of Rent. As such it i& no longer welcome, or even tolerable, to Socialists."     The above appears as a note to an article by G. Bernard Shaw in the September number of To-Day. The fact that the article in question "A Word for War," is written for the furtherance of the policy which Mr. Shaw has for some time past been urging on that section of the Socialist party with which he is most in sympathy,, of cutting loose from and repudiating the Anarchist section, perhaps accounts for though it hardly excuses, the gratuitously misleading attack. Anarchists and Collectivists have their differences., which have not yet estranged them. But it takes two to make a quarrel, and an unexpected stinger on the sm---- nose, in what was understood to be a friendly engagement, has before now been found of service in promoting the alienation of an acquaintance whose comradeship has ceased to be desired. Whether the Right and Left of the Socialist party should adopt the policy of mutual disavowal and denunciation, I do not desire here to discuss. Nor is it for me, who do not claim to be an Anarchist, to pretend to put forward the Anarchist criticism of the general purport of Mr. Shaw's article. But as the observations in his note are just the sort of language which we constantly hear from common-sensible people who are not Socialists, and other folk who know no better, it seems to me, as a Socialist, a pity that they should be allowed to pass as expressing what Socialists think of Anarchism.     Mr. Shaw knows quite well that "ignorance of the law of Rent" is no distinction of the Anarchist. It is a general characteristic of men and women whose education in economics has been neglected. His reproach against the Anarchist is just what Mr. Mallock's is against him, as the typical Socialist. And when Mr. Shaw points out to Mr. Mallock that, whatever the ignorance of the rank and file, he is one of those superior persons who know all about rent, and are Socialists because of that knowledge, he might just as well remember that there are Anarchists among his own acquaintance who, if not quite so handy with the text-books, could at any rate pass muster as to the principles. The assertion that the ignorance of their companions is invincible while that of his own associates is transient,, does but bear witness equally to Mr. Shaw's modesty and to the educational influence of his society. If there is any essential distinction between Anarchists and other Socialists in their views as to rent, it is not as to the existence or the nature of the advantages which may be classed under that name but rather as to the effective means for their equitable distribution. And,, whatever Mr. Shaw may mean by "unmitigated individualism" as a characteristic of Anarchists, it is certainly true that they have not the least confidence that such equitable distribution will be secured by the system of mitigated Individualism-selfishness tempered by repression-which some people preach under the name of Socialism. They are not at all of the opinion, to which we have heard Mr. Shaw himself give encouragement, that when the workers have appropriated the existing sources of rent and interest, and it has been made penal for any man to let his property for hire or usury, the work of Socialism will be accomplished, and that the products of the labour of the com-
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munity will then be distributed in the beat and fairest way possible by giving free play and encouragement to the predatory and competitive impulses of the individual. If Mr. Shaw frankly extols the instinct of predatory individualism, as I admit that any one on Darwinian grounds may show considerable reason for doing, and believes that it is only the co existence in modern society of the capitalist system of exploitation that causes its effects to be evil, then Socialism means for him Individualism mitigated by the making of such exploitation penal,, or at least restraining it in some manner by executive pressure. As regards the rent and interest, which the abolition of the exploiting class would restore for the benefit of the community, the Collectivist scheme proposes that they should be pooled in a national or municipal treasury and redistributed in the form of remission of taxation or works of public utility. Not only is the Anarchist extremely sceptical as to the likelihood of the majority of the people getting any share of the rents at all under such an arrangement, but he points out, with the commonplace bourgeois critic, that assuming the competitive predatory spirit to be developed in the government lessees, it is not at all probable that the full rent will ever get itself pooled. These doubts he is entitled to harbour without exposing himself to the chargeof invincible ignorance in economics.     But it is of more importance to him to invite a consideration of what would be the result to society of the establishment of this system of merely mitigated individualism, assuming the retention of the legal guarantee of private property, other than capital, and the persistence of competitive individualism. The result would be that each worker would obtain as private property the competitive exchange value of his own contribution to production. It is admitted--at least I have heard Mr. Shaw admit--that the man of exceptional and indispensable, or much prized, ability would make a large income, and that the feeble person would starve or live a pauper, the annual product being distributed as wages in amounts graduated between these extremes. The dynasty of the armed man and the dynasty of capital having passed away, their place in the exploitation of humanity would be taken by the man of superior efficiency.     In such a prospect the Anarchists see no blessedness If I do not misinterpret them, they hold that the abolition of the laws and legal machinery by which the " rights " of property are protected and enforced is a simpler method of extinguishing its abuses than the creation of new laws and machinery for the repression of capitalist exploitation which is just one of those abuses, while the absence of all property law would abate that inequality of distribution which would be left unaffected by the extinction of that exploitation. But that this implies a doctrine of unmitigated individualism, in the sense in which the word has been used above--the bad sense in which Mr. Shaw employed it in his note--no Socialist can seriously pretend. On the contrary, it is because of this insistence on, and confidence in, what is an indispensable part of true Socialist teaching--the doctrine of the social nature and propensities of man--that they urge the suppression of that machinery of law and order which the Socialist Right only desire to modify. They believe that the selfish and predatory Individualism is born only of fear and distrust, of which the most fruitful source is the power of man over man. They believe--and surely every Socialist believes with them--that under favourable and fitting conditions man's impulse is to co-operation, and that were it not so no readjustment of material conditions would be worth fighting for. I hold, as convincedly as any Anarchist-Socialist can, that the ultimate advantage of any readjustment that should not be accompanied by an abatement of egoistic competition would be nil. The " individualism" of the Anarchists is the unfolding of the true nature of the individual, and if I and other Socialists are not quite in agreement with them as to the safest conditions for such evolution, we at any rate welcome the reminder, which we get far more often from the Anarchists than from Mr. Shaw, that the ultimate aim of Socialism is the making of Man, and that we have reason to think that there is enough of noble and lovely in his nature to warrant him worth the making. Sydney Olivier. FOR GOOD OR ILL?     WE have been speaking of the spontaneous action of human energy as a great fact, which it is foolish and dangerous to overlook or ignore. But there are two ways of accepting the existence of a fact. We may rejoice in it and welcome it as a good, or find it distasteful and repel it as an evil. We may use our conscious exercise of will to give it free play, or we may set ourselves to counteract or evade its action.     How do we look upon the spontaneous upleaping of energy in man whether it take shape in thought, feeling, or action, The common answer now-a days is, It is good or evil according to the circumstances like the manifestation of energy in fire, which we say is a good servant but a bad master. Au answer characteristic of our epoch of transition, in which all vital questions are wrapped in a haze of doubt and contradiction, and the search for truth too frequently issues in the vague acceptance of a compromise.     In sturdier ages men had no such doubts to bewilder them. During those dark times when the principle of authority was strong and full of life, and reigned supreme in society, moralists and priests had no hesitation in condemning the spontaneous motions of human nature as necessarily, essentially, and entirely evil. According to the teaching of the Christian Church the heart of man was deceitful and desperately wicked. Out of it proceeded naught but cruelty and lies. All its acts were evil continually. Man of his own motion could do no good	thing. "I am full of decay," moans Thomas a' Kempis one of the moat gifted and tender exponents of Catholicism during the ages of faith. "Fight thou strongly for me," he prays,, "and vanquish the evil besets, I mean the alluring desires of the flesh." When one turns over the pages of 'The Imitation of Christ ' to discover the character of these evil beasts, from whom the poor monk implores so piteously to be delivered, we find they are the healthy and natural desires of man's heart for knowledge, for human love and companionship, for personal freedom, for the esteem of his fellows,, for the enjoyments of the sense,, and for a share of the good things of this life. These natural impulses all war against the dreamy state of mental abstraction in an imaginary world which the monk calls the spiritual life, where, if a man desire to walk, " it is necessary that he mortify all his corrupt and inordinate affections, and that he should not earnestly cleave to any creature with particular love." The "natural man" or the "flesh," i.e., full and complete human nature, must be crushed, subdued, suppressed to make room for "grace," the good with which it may be inspired by the action of God, either directly or through the priests and lawgivers whom he has inspired to rule the lives of their fellows.. " Go where thou wilt," writes A' Kempis, " thou shalt find no rest but in humble subjection under the government of a superior."     The great movement towards freedom of thought, which resulted in the revolt against authority, galled the Reformation, by no means put an end to the fixed belief in the essential depravity of human nature and the need to crush out human desires and affections.     The articles of the Reformed Church of England assert of every man that he " is of his own nature inclined to evil, so that the flesh lusteth always contrary to the spirit, and therefore in every person born into this world it deserveth God's wrath and damnation. And l this infection of nature cloth remain, yea in them that are regenerated whereby the lust of the flesh,, which some do expound the wisdom some sensuality, some the affection, some the desire of the flesh, is not subject to the law of God."     Decidedly in the opinion of Christian churchmen and theologians the spontaneous manifestations of human energy were the workings of original sin, and the promptings of the devil.     The first practical outcome of this belief amongst the masses of the people was the loss of self-respect The proud Englishman, who in his heathen days had scorned to kneel before gods or men, learned to grovel in morbid self-disgust before the ascetic,, who by moral suicide had killed or perverted the healthy impulses of his own nature. Men grew to be ashamed of their true selves. Conscientious persons lived under a continual sense of guilt and humiliation, or else of self-delusion and hypocrisy, induced by a continual effort to appear what they were not. Careless and unconscious natures tended to become utterly reckless in the selfishness of their self-indulgence. Fortunately, men are continually better than their beliefs, or the Christian world would have become an actual realisation of its own inhuman heaven and hell.     Another result of this strange idea of a bad nature to be destroyed that goodness might be, as it were, pumped into man's heart from the outside, was the acceptance of coercion as a necessity. The people were taught by their masters that the evil dispositions of men must be restrained by laws made and enforced by divinely inspired priests and rulers, and by degrees this teaching took wide and deep hold of the popular mind. It lies hidden there to this day.     I do not, of course, mean that this general belief in human depravity was the cause of the authority exercised during these many ages by churchmen, aristocrats, kings, and parliament, or that it was the origin of law. It is important to recognise that it was neither. But it was the reason which was put forward, and is sometimes put forward to this day, to cloak the perverted instinct of domination run mad. It was the reason that men, who usurped authority over their fellows, gave to themselves for their unnatural conduct; the excuse they made to their own consciences, and by means of which they appealed to the moral sense of the masses whom they controlled.     Next month we will notice how this belief began to die, and its active effects to fade out of social life. VILLAGE LIFE IN DORSETSHIRE.     I remember when labourers were paid only seven or eight shillings a-week, and their food was mostly barley cake and potatoes. They used to help themselves to swede turnips out of the fields, and to all the fuel they cooked with. They are better off now, but still it is sad enough.     The people have been driven out of the villages to seek work in the towns. In 1857 the population of this village was 595, and in 1881 it was 422-a decrease of 173 in 30 years. The number of houses is less by 24.     At the present time a farm labourer has eleven shillings a-week wages, and a house valued at from one shilling to eighteen pence a week rent. In hay-making time he gets ten shillings beer money. At wheat harvest he has £1, and during wheat tying, which lasts about SiY days, he can earn five shillings a-day, harvest work being paid by the job. The same holds good of hoeing root crops,, at which a man can get three and sixpence or four shillings a-day for about fifteen days in the year.     Carters receive from twelve to thirteen shillings a-week, a house and wood fuel free, and two hundredweight of coal, besides £1 at hay-
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making and £2 at harvest for beer money. Shepherds get the same wages and beer money as carters, and an allowance of about one penny on each lamb they rear.     There is generally on each farm, besides the above, a "hedge-carpenter" and rick thatcher, who is paid fourteen or fifteen shillings a-week.     All these labourers have 20 or 30 lug of ground, rent free, to grow potatoes. (A lug is 5 1/2 square yards, yearly rent value 2d.).) But I very much doubt if the men get much benefit from these potato grounds, which they have to plant, hoe, and dig when they come home, tired out after a long day's work. They require more and better food and drink to enable them to stand this extra exertion, and they have to find their own tools.     During hay-making and harvest the labourers are working from four or five in the morning till nine or ten at night. Carters always have to be in the stable as early as 4 a.m. They go out with the ploughs at six o'clock, and return to the stable at two in the afternoon, feed the horses and go home to dinner. At three they must be back again to clean down the horses and the stable. Then they go home to tea, and at eight have to return to the farm to feed the horses again and bed them for the night. Not much time for potato hoeing after that!     As for the shepherds, during January and February, the lambing season, they have to sleep in the fields in a covered cart, called the shepherd's lambing house, or under some thatched hurdles; for many times during the night they must get up and see if the sheep want assistance.     The plan of granting a house rent free as part of wages puts the labourers under the farmer's thumb, and now all the landowners let their cottages to the farmers. Thus the labourers can be evicted immediately without the case going to the county court. A few years ago I saw three labourers,, with their wives and children, and their furniture, by the road-side at Milborne Bt. Andrews. They had been evicted by the farmer, because they were union men and would not work for the wages he offered.. One of them had the pluck to turn a hive of bees loose in his cottage to prevent the furniture being thrown out. This same farmer was a queer fellow as well as a hard master. Once he had a waggon placed before his window, and set a man to turn the wheel all day long. A convict's task; one to make a fool of a man but the labourer had to do it or get turned off. In the end this village tyrant shot himself.     It must not be supposed that labourers are able to spend their extra harvest money on extra comforts or enjoyments. Alas! they are run too short all the rest of the year for that. As soon as a man gets his harvest wages, he must pay the shopkeeper, the shoemaker, etc., for the bills run up in winter. And then he has to buy his pig of the farmer. That costs £1, paid in instalments of one shilling a-week. By harvest time the hog-tub isgenerally full of potato parings, and with these and small potatoes and a littler bran and barley, piggy is fattened. About Christmas-time he is killed, but then half of him must be sold to pay the grocer's bill.     The food of a labourer's family is bread, skim milk cheese, fried potatoes and cabbage or parsnips for breakfast, with a little coffee to drink. Dinner consists of bacon, with potatoes and cabbage boiled; supper of bread and butter, with the invariable potatoes and cabbage or parsnips fried, or perhaps stewed turnips for a change. The wife always boils an extra quantity of vegetables at dinner-time, so as to have plenty ready to fry morning and evening.     There is no possibility of putting by money or feeding useless mouths, all the old folk have to go to the union workhouse.     Such is the life of a Dorset labourer. A life-long, exhausting round of labour for the benefit of the monopolists of land and capital, the landlord and the farmer. A slavery which takes all joy out of the healthiest and most natural of human occupations, and drives men out of the country to overcrowd our large towns, where they are often far worse off in the end. A DORSETSHIRE MAN. LAW AND ORDER IN IRELAND. XI.-GOOD GOVERNMENT.     The success of the Ulster plantation being satisfactorily gauged by the increase I of gold in English coffers,, royal and otherwise, James and his creatures resolved to make a similar attempt in Leinster. The owners andcultivators of the rich acres in the eastern province were too numerous to be harried into exile like the ! Earls Tyrone and Tyrconnel, or to be cleared out by acts of attainder, but the ingenuity of James and his sycophants devised a commission to inquire into defective titles.     All manner of evidence was to be collected, what and how estates were held, the number of the inhabitants and their lords, what rents were paid but above all what claim the Crown had to any portion thereof.     It was an excellent scheme, for if a flaw could be found in any man's title he could either be frightened into accepting a fresh patent "on the terms of his paying a round sum by way of composition or if he refused, the land could be granted to some one else at an annual quit-rent." As an incentive to the finding of flaws the plunder was divided between tee king and the "discoverer."     There remained but Connaught to be made profitable, and James was busy with a scheme for bringing that portion too within the net, when be was forced to join those congenial spirits, the ghosts of his robber ancestors.     Historians, i.e., court liars, have unanimously declared that during the reign of James I. and of his son Charles, Ireland was well-governed. It has been shown how well under James, and if such be well it can be safely said that the eon bettered the father.     To Charles I. belongs the honour of having reduced the government of Ireland to its simplest terms. He promised anything and everything for a good round sum in hard cash and having secured the money he right royally shuffled out of performances. It would be impossible to unfold in detail the crimes of the English Executive in Ireland within the years 1625-49     Lucius Cary, Lord Falkland (1632) was forced to resign his office as Lord	Deputy because he had dared to deal leniently with the Catholic portion of his Sacred Majesty's Irish subjects.     Adherence to the old form of religions fath had become a powerful lever for the hands of Ireland's oppressors. Catholics were rigidly excluded from all political rights, their social liberties were shorn of all that made life pleasant and the act of breathing only permitted then on payment of heavy bribes.     Temporary toleration or rather suspended persecution,, continued many years a fruitful source for replenishing tee English Exchequer.     And here may be pointed out the reason why the Irish rebels never met with the success which attended the Scotch and English when in revolt against the tyranny of Charles. The two latter held similarity of purpose and of faith, and consequently sympathised with and supported each other, while tee Irish in their struggles to be free were always confronted with race-hatred and " the United bigotry of Scotch Presbyterian and English Puritan."     This violation of natural instincts which would otherwise have united the peoples of the three countries against their common tyrant brought about a Nemesis that has ever since dogged England's course. Henceforth the Irish were ever ready so fling themselves on tee side of her adversaries, and England's difficulties be came Ireland' a opportunities. (TO BE CONTINUED.) SOCIALIST PROPAGANDA.     Although we heartily sympathise with our comrades of the Socialist Leage, Social Democratic Federation, Fabian Society, and all other associations engaged in Socialist propaganda, we by Do means consider all the theories they advance or the methods they advocate beyond question. Probably some of our readers share this view and hold with us that friendly criticism and discussion is a wonderful help in clearing up difficulties, and may aid us all to pierce through the mere formulas of our party into the essence of Socialism.. We shall therefore gladly welcome any communication criticising or commenting upon Socialist speeches and lectures. We propose to publish such communications month by month under the above heading. tee following has been sent us to begin with. LEGAL MEANS.     Mr. Champion--whose lecture in Regent's Park on September 3rd, was delivered in a tone of conviction and earnestness which must have impressed 0a very large audience--said there were two legal means fitted to advance Socialism in this country--namely, boycotting and the ballot.     For boycotting he instanced a combination of London workmen to atop payment of rents. The idea is good as far as it goes, but is it practicable' Mr. Champion did not trouble to show this,, nor do I wish to prove the contrary. At the same time I much doubt whether the boycott can be considered as legal, or if it can be sustained by other than illegal means. At any rate its presumed legality may be lost at a moment's notice; and this shows the extreme incongruity of ruling our action by the plane of our enemy.     About the ballot Mr. Champion was more effusive. But he put forward no illustration of the usfulness of the ballot to Socialism (the remark that had the Socialists had a voice in Mr. Matthews' constituency Pole would have been released, being beside the purpose, as,, even admitting the supposition, no inference can be drawn from the treatment of a personal case to larger matters), but actually produced evidence contradictory to his assertion ! Did he not, in fact, affirm that Irish and Welsh people only succeeded in drawing official attention to their respective sufferings by riot after riot? Is not the moral of one historical demonstration of the unemployed in Trafalgar Square known ? After ate., what will Irishmen get through their 85 representatives at Westminster more than a sham political liberty ? how, then, can it be hoped that the English people v. ill by the same means obtain deliverance from the hands both of landlords and capi-. talists ? Can we hope to return more than 300 incorruptible people to Parliament meet, and what could they do there against the constitution and the laws of tee country, the influence of the court, the influence of wealth, and te stubborn resistance of judges, military, bureaucrats and plutocrats to any encroachment on their vested privileges ? Mr. Champion hinted that after all the phrase " legal means " could be only a make-believe. But " they will Dot believe it if you don't do it," one could answer. As for me, I think that, without calling the people to very extraordinary action, there is great necessity to lay before their eyes the whole helplessness and gravity of the situation and tell them to prepare. Especially in this country, we want to throw off the "legality" bias; and the sooner the better.-F. S. M. ENGLAND'S IDEAL.     The little book containing 'England's Ideal and other Papers on Social Subjects," by Edward Carpenter (price 1s., .. cloth edition 2s. 6d, Swan Sonnenschein and Co.) should be read by every one. Ii is impossible for man or woman to do so without self-application of a wholesome kind. To those who are of the writer's way of thinking, his vigorous sentences will be so many trumpet notes of encouragement, To those halting between two opinions the record of his personal experiences will give the necessary impetus to join the ranks of Socialism, for the way is marked out too plainly to be mistaken. While to the adversaries of the new development, if any such should have the good luck to come across the book, tee laying bare in all its ugliness the canker of their respectability may be a help to point them to a method of cauterisation if they be not already past cure. THE CHICAGO TRIAL.     We are requested to publish the following notice:--" 'A concise history of the great trial of the Chicago Anarchists,' compiled by Dyer D. Lum, containing 200 pages, printed in large, clear type. PAce 25 cents. A panted copy of the celebrated speeches of the eight condemned men entitled, 'The Accused the Accusers, being the the famous Speeches of the eight Chicago Anarchists in Court,' comprising 200 pages of large clear print. Price lb cents. Workingmen and others who have read the prejudiced and perverted accounts of this great capital. istic trial as given in the corrupt capitalistic press, now have an opportunity to learn the facts as taken from the official record of the trial, as well as from the statements of the condemned men themselves, which they made in their speeches expounding their principles before the court. All who would study the purposes and inspiration of the world-wide labour movement of to-day, should not fail to read these two books. Copies will be forwarded to any address on receipt of price. Reduced rates to agents. Send your orders to Socialistic Publishing Society, No. 274 West 12th Street, Chicago, III." Annual Subscription one shilling. Post free in England and within the Postal Union one and sixpence. All communications to be addressed to The Editor, FREEDOM Office 34 Bourverie Street, Fleet Street, E.C. FREEDOM can be obtained in London from 11. Reeves, 185 Fleet Street; the Freethought Publishing Company, 63 Fleet Street; the Socialist League Office, 13 Farringdon Road, E.C.; or ordered through a newsagents. "FREEDOM" PUBLICATION FUND. Italian Circle 4. E. C. £5. C. S., 10s. H. G. 15a. A. R. D., 6d. Printed and Published by C. X. Wilsom 34 Bouverie Street, London, E.C.