The fond hopes held out to the toiling and suffering millions of 
this country thirty years ago have not been realised. They were 
told that the removal of fiscal restrictions would make the lot of 
the labouring poor easy; if it could not render them happy and 
contented it would at least banish starvation for ever from their 
midst. 

They rose a terrible commotion for the big loaf,**’ the landlords 
became rampant, the money lords confounded, the factory lords 
rejoiced—their will was done—Protection received the coup de 
grace. A period of the most marvellous prosperity followed. At 
first the Tories threatened to reverse the policy, but on mounting 
the ministerial benches, in 1852, instead of carrying out their 
threat, they joined the chorus in praise of unlimited competition. 
Prepared for a pecuniary loss they discovered to their utter 
astonishment that the rent-roll was swelling at the rate of more 
than £2,000,000 a year. Never in the history of the human race 
was there so much wealth—means to satisfy the wants of 
man—produced by so few hands, and in so short a time, as since 
the abolition of the Corn Laws. During the lapse of twenty years 
the declared value of the annual exports of British and Irish 
produce and manufactures—the fruits of your own labour—rose 
from £60,000,000 to £188,900,000. In twenty years the taxable 
income of the lords and ladies of the British soil increased, upon 
their own confession, from £98,000,000 to £140,000,000 a year; 
that of the chiefs of trades and professions from £60,000,000 to 


15* 


402 Appendices 


£110,000,000 a year. Could human efforts accomplish more? 

Alas! there are stepchildren in Britania’s family. No Chancellor 
of the Exchequer has yet divulged the secret how the 
£ 140,000,000 are distributed amongst the territorial magnates, but 
we know all about the trades-folk. The special favourites increased 
from sixteen, in 1846, to one hundred and thirty-three, in 1866. 
Their average annual income rose from £74,300 to £100,600 
each. They appropriated one-fourth of the twenty years’ increase. 
The next of kin increased from three hundred and nineteen to 
nine hundred and _ fifty-nine individuals: their average annual 
income rose from £17,700 to £19,300 each: they appropriated 
another fourth. The remaining half was distributed amongst three 
hundred and _ forty-six thousand and _ forty-eight respectables, 
whose annual income ranged between £100 and £10,000 sterling. 
The toiling millions, the producers of that wealth— Britania’s 
cinderellas—got cuffs and kicks instead of halfpence. 

In the year 1864 the taxable income under schedule D** 
increased by £9,200,000. Of that increase the metropolis, with less 
than an eighth of the. population, absorbed £4,266,000, nearly a 
half. £3,123,000 of that, more than a third of the increase of 
Great Britain, was absorbed by the City of London, by the 
favourites of the one hundred and seventy-ninth part of the 
British population: Mile End and the Tower, with a working 
population four times as numerous, got £175,000. The citizens of 
London are smothered with gold; the householders of the Tower 
Hamlets are overwhelmed by poor-rates. The citizens, of course, 
object to centralisation of poor-rates purely on the principle of 
local self-government. 

During the ten years ending 1861 the operatives employed in 
the cotton trade increased 12 per cent; their produce 103 per 
cent. The iron miners increased 6 per cent; the produce of the 
mines 37 per cent. Twenty thousand iron miners worked for ten 
mine owners. During the same ten years the agricultural labourers 
of England and Wales diminished by eighty-eight thousand one 
hundred and forty-seven, and yet, during that period, several 
hundred thousand acres of common land were enclosed and 
transformed into private property to enlarge the estates of the 
nobility, and the same process is still going on. 

In twelve years the rental liable to be rated to the poor in 
England and Wales rose from £86,700,000 to £118,300,000: the 
number of adult able-bodied paupers increased from one hundred 
and forty-four thousand five hundred to one hundred and 
eighty-five thousand six hundred. 


Appendices 403 


These are no fancy pictures, originating in the wild speculations 
of hot brained incorrigibles; they are the confessions of landlords 
and money lords, recorded in their own blue books. One of their 
experts told the House of Lords the other day that the propertied 
classes, after faring sumptuously, laid by £150,000,000 a year out 
of the produce of your labour. A few weeks later the president of 
the Royal College of Surgeons related to a jury, assembled to 
inquire into the causes of eight untimely deaths, what he saw in 
the foul ward of St. Pancras. 

Hibernia’s favourites too have multiplied, and their income has 
risen, while a sixth of her toiling sons and daughters perished by 
famine, and its consequent diseases, and a third of the remainder 
were evicted, ejected and expatriated by tormenting felonious 
usurpers. 

This period of unparalleled industrial prosperity has landed 
thousands of our fellow-toilers—honest, unsophisticated, hard- 
working men and women—in the stone yard and the oakum 
room’; the roast beef of their dreams has turned into skilly. 
Hundreds of thousands, men, women and children, are wandering 
about—homeless, degraded outcasts—in the land that gave them 
birth, crowding the cities and towns, and swarming the highroads 
in the. country in search of work to obtain food and _ shelter, 
without being able to find any. Other thousands, more spirited 
than honest, are walking the treadmill to expiate little thefts, 
preferring prison discipline to workhouse fare, while the wholesale 
swindlers are at large, and felonious landlords preside at quarter 
sessions to administer the laws. Thousands of the young and 
strong cross the seas, flying from their native firesides, like from 
an exterminating plague; the old and feeble perish on the 
roadside of hunger and cold. The hospitals and infirmaries are 
overcrowded with fever and famine-stricken: death from starva- 
tion has become an ordinary every-day occurrence. 

All parties are agreed that the sufferings of the labouring poor 
were never more intense, and misery so widespread, nor the 
means of satisfying the wants of man ever so abundant as at 
present. This proves above all that the moral foundation of all civil 
government, “that the welfare of the entire community is the highest 
law, and ought to be the aim and end of all civil legislation”, has been 
utterly disregarded. Those who preside over the destinies of the 
nation have either wantonly neglected their primary duty while 
attending to the special interests of the rich to make them richer, 
or their social position, their education, their class prejudices have 
incapacitated them from doing their duty to the community at 


404 Appendices 


large or applying the proper remedies; in either case they have 
betrayed their trust. 

Class government is only possible on the condition that those 
who are held in subjection are secured against positive want. The 
ruling classes have failed to secure the industrious wages-labourer 
in the prime of his life against hunger and death from starvation. 
Their remedies have signally failed, their promises have not been 
fulfilled. They promised retrenchment, they have enormously 
increased the public expenditure instead. They promised to lift 
the burden of taxation from your shoulders, the rich pay but a 
fractional part of the increased expenses; the rest is levied upon 
your necessaries—even your pawn tickets are taxed—to keep up a 
standing army, drawn from your own ranks, to shoot you down if 
you show signs of disaffection. They promised to minimise 
pauperism: they have made indigence and destitution your 
average condition—the big loaf has dwindled into no loaf. Every 
remedy they have applied has but aggravated the evil, and they 
have no other to suggest,—their rule is doomed. To continue is to 
involve all in a common ruin. There is but one,—and only 
one,—remedy. Help Yourselves! Determine that you will not 
endure this abominable state of things any longer; act up to your 
determination, and it will vanish. 

A few weeks ago a score of London working men talked the 
matter over. They came to the conclusion that the present 
economical basis of society was the foundation of all the existing 
evils,—that nothing short of a transformation of the existing social 
and political arrangements could avail, and that such a transfor- 
mation could only be effected by the toiling millions themselves. 
They embodied their conclusions in a series of resolutions, and 
called a conference of representative working men, to whom they 
were submitted for consideration. In three consecutive meetings 
those resolutions were discussed and unanimously adopted. To 
carry them out a new working men’s organisation, under the title 
of the “Land and Labour League’, was established. An executive 
council of upwards of forty well-known representative working 
men was appointed to draw up a platform of principles arising out 
of the preliminary resolutions adopted by the conference, to serve 
as the programme of agitation by means of which a radical change 
can be effected. 

After mature consideration the Council agreed to the following: 

1. Nationalisation of the Land. 

2. Home Colonisation. . 

3. National, Secular, Gratuitous and Compulsory Education. 


Appendices 405 


4, Suppression of Private Banks of Issue. The State Only to 
Issue Paper Money. 

5. A Direct and Progressive Property Tax, in Lieu of All Other 
Taxes. 

6. Liquidation of the National Debt. 

7. Abolition of the Standing Army. 

8. Reduction of the Number of the Hours of Labour. 

9. Equal Electoral Rights, with Payment of Members. 

The success of our efforts will depend upon the pressure that 
can be brought to bear upon the powers that be, and this requires 
numbers, union, organisation and combination. We therefore call 
upon you to unite, organise and combine, and raise the cry 
throughout Ireland, Scotland, Wales and England, “The Land for 
the People’—the rightful inheritors of nature’s gifts. No rational 
state of society can leave the land, which 1s the source of life, 
under the control of, and subject to the whims and caprices of, a 
few private individuals. A government elected by, and as trustee 
for, the whole people is the only power that can manage it for the 
benefit of the entire community. 

Insist upon the State reclaiming the unoccupied lands as a 
beginning of its nationalisation, and placing the unemployed upon 
it. Let not another acre of common land be enclosed for the 
private purposes of non-producers. Compel the Government to 
employ the army, until its final dissolution, as a pioneer force to 
weed, drain and level the wastes for cultivation, instead of forming 
encampments to prepare for the destruction of life. If green fields 
and kitchen gardens are incompatible with the noble sport of 
hunting let the hunters emigrate. 

Make the Nine points of the League the Labour programme, 
the touchstone by which you test the quality of candidates for 
parliamentary honours, and if you find them spurious reject them 
like a counterfeit coin, for he who is not for them is against you. 

You are swindled out of the fruits of your toil by land laws, 
money laws, and all sorts of laws. Out of the paltry pittance that is 
left you, you have to pay the interest of a debt that was incurred 
to keep your predecessors in subjection; you have to maintain a 
standing army that serves no other purpose in your generation, 
and you are systematically overworked when employed, and 
underfed at all times. Nothing but a series of such radical reforms 
as indicated on our programme will ever lift you out of the slough 
of despond in which you are at present sunk. The difficulty can be 
overcome by unity of purpose and action. We are many; our 
opponents are few. Then, working men and women of all creeds 


406 Appendices 


and occupations, claim your rights as with one voice, and rally 
round, and unite your forces under, the banner of the “Land and 
Labour League” to conquer your own emancipation! 


John Weston, Treasurer 
Martin J. Boon 
Secretaries 
J. George Eccarius