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    91R THE STAI OF FREEDOM. [November 13,

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    THE LAND. " For as a young man may, I wi...

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    DEMOCRATIC MOVEMENTS

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    LETTER TO THE FRENCH PEOPLH. (Continued ...

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    THE FRENCH REPUBLICANS AND THE COMING EM...

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    Working Men's Associations. When The Ass...

    as a delusive scheme which would only mislead working-men to waste their time and throw away their money m abortive efforts . That Bill having passed , it became desirable to settle the details of rules which midit be adopted by all co-operative associations and that subject naturally engaged attention , though without leading to anv very definite result . Another oint of great moment was the establishment oi some

    p rule for setting apart a portion of the profits , for a reserve fund , and upon this ^ oint various opinions were expressed , the general impression seeming to be , that at least one-third should be saved ; but finally , a resolution was passed enabling each association to act according to its own peculiar circumstances . A debate arose which leads to an inference that co-operators are not quite free from the sins of commercialists , in using deception as to the

    quality of articles thev sell , and an earnest recommendation was adopted , to avoid deceit , and represent things to be precisely what in truth they are . No institution is complete without a press to chronicle its doings , and to disseminate information among its adherents , The " possibility of having a journal to advocate their principles was brought upon the carpet . Upon this point they had some experience to guide them . The promoters had tried hard to sustain the Christian Socialist , afterwards the Journal of Association , and , after incurring large loss , had given up the attempt . The conclusion —and a wise one tooarrived at was , that periodicals devoted solely to one object , and necessarily addressing a very limited class " do not pay . " It was the conference

    felt that a regular newspaper was wanted , and determined that steps should be taken to ascertain what amount of suoport would be given to such an undertaking . The most dangerous obstacle to an effort at journalism , appears , however , to have escaped notice . The differing politics of those who are banded together for social objects would prevent unity of design or action , and their organ must either do violence to the feelings of some among them , or lack the qualities necessary to ensure attention and respect . If the aid of the press is wanted , by far the best plan would be to secure ihe services of some independant paper , the conductors of which , while advocating their own political doctrines , and bearing the responsibility of them , would lend a vigorous assistance to those who labour to advance

    association . We have noticed the natural division of the movement into two portions—one forwarding production , the other organizing supply . Another department is still wanting , the original of which is to be foundamong commercial institutions—Credit and Banking , standing between the manufacturer aud the dealer , facilitates the operations of both . The want of this is felt by co-operators , and that want must be satisfied before Association can do its work . To

    supply this desideratum , an Investment Society , to be registered as a joint-stock company , has been projected , and the scheme was made the subject of remark . H ere the weak point of the promoters , and their want of commercial adaptibility showed itself . The money power was regarded as a thing to be dreaded—like fire " a good servant , but a bad master . " It was feared by one of the ablest of the Council that it might , unless carefully watched , become a tyrant . This is , no doubt , true , but the gentlemen must remember the adage of " nothing venture , nothing have /' All that we gain , worth acquiring , comes with risk . The same

    germ mostly contains the elements of either success or defeat ; and while the nettle stings those who touch it timidly , it hurts not the bold who grasp it firmly . Co-operation musthaxb money power , or in the present state of the world it will either fail in doing great things , or be confined to small ones . The risk must be incurred , because in braving it alone lies the possibility of triumph ; and while the promoters should keenly and anxiously watch the development of the new feature , it will be well for them to

    consider whether it must not , as in the case of the store , be managed by others , leaving to them what seems to be their special province , the watching over and promoting working associations . We see it stated that the managers of the store will , for the time being perform the functions of bankers , but we are convinced that such an addition to their already onerous duties must be merely temporary , and that they will find it impossible advantageously to blend the two departments in the same hands .

    Our space will not now allow us to notice any more particulars of the effort , in the success of which we take deep interest . We believe that social and political efforts—now one , now the other in advance , help each other—and we are certain that while an enfranchised people would ameliorate their social condition , those who have won comfort and independence for themselves , will not be long before fhey see the necessity of defending the benefits they have gained , by the acquisition of political power .

    91r The Stai Of Freedom. [November 13,

    91 R THE STAI OF FREEDOM . [ November 13 ,

    The Land. " For As A Young Man May, I Wi...

    THE LAND . " For as a young man may , I will redress so great a wrong . " There are many millions of believers in the divine authority of that book in which is written , " God made man , and gave him the earth for his inheritance . " It is needless to say that man is not now in possession . His inheritance has been filched or seized with the strong hand , and he acquiesces with only a solitary protest here and there from some independent thinker . It has often been said that land is not absolutely private property , that it owes duties to the state , -which , if unfulfilled , deprives the holders of land of the right of possession . It has been

    said , that if the land was absolutely private property , the landlords might legally order the English People to depart , serve a notice of ejectment on the nation , and call on the law authorities to enforce it . What the English People would say to such a notice is easily guessed , and needs no comment . This argument is intended to show by its absurdity that absolute private property in Land is ridiculous and impossible . What say facts ? Their reply is , that whole districts have been depopulated at the command of callous landlords , and that no wild cry of vengeance has rent the air , as , the aged mother or the widow were turned out shelterless on the bleak hill or unsheltered plain .

    Those who sit m high places would have the poor religious , and outlaw those who would make them otherwise . But what use to talk to a man of the priceless worth of his soul , if you treat him as a mere rent payer , as a troublesome kind of animal that the law by some mistake does not permit to be killed off iu the most convenient way when he ceases to be a profitable investment for Noble Lords and Landed Gentlemen . If religion is no restraint to lust of power or lust of wealth in those to whom position and education have given the title of superiors ,

    what value will attach to reli gion in the eyes of those who not only see , but reel its practical devoidance of influenc 3 for good . Who can read facts like the following , and believe that the perpetrators of such atrocious deeds can regard their unfortunate tenants as anything more than brutes ? Do they not plainly indicate that the welfare of human tenants is of far less importance to Landlords than the wild cattle that tenant their woods and fields . " Between the years 1811 and 1820 , fifteen hundred persons were driven off the land of the Marchioness of Stafford ; all their villages were pulled down or buint } and their fields

    The Land. " For As A Young Man May, I Wi...

    turned into pasturage . A like process was carried on about the same time by seven or eight nei ghbouring Lords . The human inhabitants were thus ejected , in order that sheep might take their place ; because some one had persuaded the great land holders that sheep would pay better than human beings . " * We need not stop to ask by what right such things are done . The law countenances them , and public opinion is indifferent and scared at any hint of trenching on the sacred riehts of property . Some may be anxious to know what became of

    these 1 , 500 human beings turned out of home by these legal maurauders as so much vermin hunted out of their holes . Lei the hint given by an English Catholic of what has become of Irishmen in the like case serve as an indication of what has become of the others . That we may not be supposed to be raking up those crimes of five and twenty years back , because there are none of to-day diabolical enough for our purpose , we call attention to the following from the letter of " An English Catholic" in the Times of Thursday , Oct . 28 , 1852 : —

    "The county of Mayo is at this moment in a transition state , it is progressing from the cottier state of society , in which the land was thickly peopled , and held by tenants in very small holdings , at very high rents , to the grazing system , in which it is occupied merely by a very few herds and caretakers , and held either by the landlord , or by one or two great capitalist tenants . "The change is effected by a very simple process . The whole population of a district many miles in extent are simply turned out into the roads to go where they please , and live or die as they can . Of course there are among them many old people , hardly able to get along , many sick persons , many little children , many woman in an advanced state of pregnane }' —out they all go together . "

    On enquiring where they all went to , he - was told by an agent that " some had gone to America ; that many were in the union workhouse ; that some were in the lower parts of the great towns of England , Scotland , and Ireland , but that , in his opinion , the greater part of them were dead . " The most noble the Lord Marquis of Sligo is building a wall between the road and his land . The people being expelled without remorse . Their cottages are pulled down and used to build the wall . Then there is the territory of Sir Eodger Palmer , and then , that of the Right Hon . the Earl of Lucan . "Here things are more advanced . All

    will very soon bear the appearance of a district which man has never peopled . The district operated upon begins three or four miles from Westport , and extends almost to the town of Ballinrobe , a distance of perhaps 25 miles . The Earl of Lucan , alone , has lately laid down on grass about 20 , 000 acres of densely inhabited land . " - Is not a \ l this horrible , inhuman , impossible oi behei' ? That wealthy , educated , and refined men can cast out upon the cold earth amid the piteless elements his unfortunate fellow mortals , men , women , and children . To bid them live or die , and living care not how . Is this a result of the civilization of the nineteenth century , that the human animal not

    paying so well as sheep or oxen , may be driven off the land to make room for the more manageable cattle ? What says public opinion to this , little or nothing . The Times draws a comparison between the Irish landlords and the American slave-holder , and roundly declares that the iniquity of the landlords is many shades darker than that of the slave-holder . But nothing can be done . The dense population , ejected , marches off as best it may , dying on the road-side , some pushing their way into the squalor and fever of the large towns . Thousands of sheep take the place of the human population , and all loohs well . Nature smiles as blandly on the crops and herds , as if no change had taken place , as if crime , and sin , and outrage had not desecrated the spot . As if the lust for gold had not callously trodden under foot the

    rights , the lives , the homes of thousands ; under the pretence of law and right of ownership . Is not England the land of the English ? Some day , O Landlords , we shall ask for your title deeds . The oracle of Printing House Square admits the horrors , and fixes the crimes on the right shoulders ; but " what would you have us to do , asks the Times' ? nothing can be done . " It is sad that a people should be so incapable as to leave an injury such as this , a misfortune so great unredressed , to be able to do—nothing . It is too true , nothing is almost the sum of what can be done . The time is not yet come . The work necessary for redemption from such evils is too stern , too thorough , too earnest for either the times or the people . Suffer , and wait , and work patiently , must be the motto of Great Britain as of France , Italy , Hungary , and of Poland .

    One word to you , philanthropists , who seek to clothe the negro , and win him to the Gospel of Christ . To you , Abolitionists , whose indignation is ever ready to burst upon the American nation for its backslidings , could you not expend some of your philanthropy , some of your indignation on home-grown misery , and vent some oi * your just wrath ou crime that is indigenous and is devoid of the romance of distance . My suggestion is , try your hands on the landlords , that would be useful work and practical , and quite enough for the hardest worker among you . And to you , peace-men , who aim at world-wide pacification , can you not become less ambitious and try your hands at the inauguration of a peace at home that shall be no deception , which shall in no wise need a veil to conceal the internicene war waged under the

    guise of peace , and in the name of law . I would ask you , peace-men , whether these thousands of human beings would have been ejected by the Marchioness of Stafford , and the 20 , 000 acres depopulated by the Earl of Lucan , if the people ( every man of them ) had a vote to deposit anually in the ballot-box , and a weapon over their mantle shelf to protect their vote . To you who are friends of 'Ital y , of Poland , or aught else , do not forget to be friends of your home country , and to speak the manful word fox the oppressed , though unadorned , by the romance of foreign strife . It is true that nothing can be done at once . That as a people we acquiesce in these brutal displays of landlord power and callous greed for gold , but the time will come , and has made many a stride towards its advent , when the people shall sit in judornent and ask yon , " O , Landlords , to produce your title deeds . " °

    P . S . —Since writing the above , I have heard that the Marquis of Sligo has denied the above facts in respect to himself in the Times . * F . Newman ' s Political Economy .

    Democratic Movements

    DEMOCRATIC MOVEMENTS

    Letter To The French Peoplh. (Continued ...

    LETTER TO THE FRENCH PEOPLH . ( Continued from last Saturday ' s Stab oi ? Freedom . ) MEANS OF THE REVOLUTION . But it suffices not to proclaim principles ; it is-necessary to know how to realise , apply , and practise them . For eighteen hundred years the Testament has been saying to men , " Love one another " and still man battles with man . More than fifty years since , our fathers proclaimed liberty , equality , and fraternity * and man is still the slave of man . The principle , of the sovereignty of the people was promulgated more than fifty years since , yet the people are still

    the subjects of one man , in the name of their own sovereignty Principles merely , then , are insufficient , since they may be turned against themselves , and betray those who invoke thorn . There is needed the union of the principle with the fact , as that of the soul and the body . The logic of thought to action is the character of men in general , and of the French people in particular . France is the head that thinks and the arm that acts . To the work ,-then for us and for all ! For our political unity , daughter of our natural logic , makes our strength , and strength compels . We must act we must do what at present it is possible to do . Without waiting longer , witjiout longer losing ourselves in the depths of the ideal in

    Letter To The French Peoplh. (Continued ...

    the search of the absolute , of the philosophic good , which is never found , we must enter immediately , resolutely , on the field ' of action The ground of principle is vast , immense , immeasurable ; but it j ' brought within our reach by practice enlarged by science . But thorn are already enough ideas common to all , acquired and accepted ' to allow of their immediate application . Those who would temporise would always wait for the perfecting of systems , forget that action perfects the idea ; that the idea never will be perfect ; that the ideal

    is not terrestrial ; that the absolute is not human . Finite and con . tingenl beings , we can only approach nearer and nearer to the prhj ciplc , without reaching it . It appertains not to any man , to any people , or to any epoch , to have the integral , infinite , eternal ituui % A part may not . be the whole . Only the ensemble of generations ' times and worlds , may entirely incarnate God . Our right and our duty is to do our part for our" time , within the limits of our strength according to our power and our knowledge . Others will do the rest '

    . Behold , then , what is realisable , capable of being effected by \ iS for the revolution . Eh bien , the counter-revolution itself teaches it to us . It boasts of having the support of the army , the clergy , the magistracy , and the Bank . It thus shows to us our task , the means and the end . With four good decrees , all that is necessary , the r evolutionary people will demolish these four pillars of the cavern a nd the monster will be overwhelmed beneath the ruins . '

    THE ARMY . Until now society has organised its forces only for destruction . Man , destined for peace and labour , has begun , by war and conquest . Before having science , he had recourse to strength ; before knowing that he ought to live , to combat , nature and conquer matter , he set about righting and conquering his fellow .- ! . But tho time of Hercules and of Caesar has passed . Civilisation by means of arms is no longer possible . The uniting of peoples by victory is finished : con . straint should give place , to liberty .

    The standing army of France , which has been the perfected instrument of war , and which is now the evil par excellence , has borne its last fruit—servitude and misery . It costs five hundre d million francs a year ; and it keeps five hundred thousand able-bodied men from working . One-fourth of it is composed of mercenaries , who have sold themselves , body and soul ; one-half of helots , whom poverty compels to pay the tax of blood in kind , and ignorance reduces to a mere mechanism . It is an infernal machine of five

    hundred thousand guns that may bo fired five times a minute in the hands of one man . It is contrary to the three principles—Liberty , Equality , Fraternity . With its barrack life , its infatuation tor chiefs , its passive obedience , its barbarous code and inhuman discipline , it is but an engine of tyranny , made to serve and enslave ; it ruins and oppresses under the pretext of defending ; it is a body of armed slaves to keep down the slaves that ate armless . The standing army of France is the best army of conquest—is , and always will be , the best army of oppression ; for conquest is unjust , immoral , contrary to the principle of human liberty—it is

    oppression abroad , the sister of tyranny at home . Have not these African generals treated Frenchmen just like Arabs ? That standing army , the absolute instrument of external and internal violence should therefore no longer exist . It is irremediably condemned . It should not have survived the 24 th of February ; it killed itself on the 2 nd of December . The murder it , committed has been its suicide . Had it not been for the 2 nd of December it might perhaps have been still preserved , as it was recalled to Paris after the ' 24 th

    of February . There might again have been talk of the honour of arms , of the glory of the banner , of services rendered , of heads whitened beneath the helmet , of old military dress . But it for ever drowned itself in the blood of December ; it must be dissolved , its banners burned , and its principal chiefs degraded ; an example is needed . It must understand the enormity of its crime by the solemnity of its punishment . But , in order " that that great national lesson may be moral and profitable , there must be reward for the

    meritorious as well as punishment for the guilty ; the popular ovation must be decreed to the republican soldiers of Africa , to the exiled democratic sub-officers sent to the desert for their republicanism ; they must receive the civic honours rendered by the first revolution to the soldiers of Chateau-Yieux condemned to " the king ' s galleys ; there must be recreated that nursery of patriot heroes , of unconquered generals , named Kleber , Hoche , and Marceau ! > , it will be said , to disband the army is \ o disarm tho revolution in presence of tyranny , and the defence of the country and the deliverance of Europe ? France should establish the universal republic , or submit to the universal royalty . An army , then ? Yes , but a republican one . Therefore , the actual army should be dissolved , absorbed in the entire nation , there to lose for ever that

    praetorian spirit , that military ambition , that royal and imperial trade of man-killing , always powerless to defend the country , and finally vanquished by two invasions . Tho grand army fell at Leipsick ; the old guard at Waterloo . The army should be founded iu a levee en masse , in order that it may possess that general , generous , disinterested , and invincible desire for the common safety which twice drove the enemy from the soil of the republic , with the volunteers of Fleurs and Yalmy .

    Without doubt , life being divine and war inhuman , every military regime , whatever its character , is , and always will be , anti-natural and anti-democratic . But , so long as monarchy exists menacing the cause of right—so long as the , universal republic shall not have made of all the peoples one people , France , having strength , must preserve it and employ it against the common enemy . It is a choice : between two evils , and the least must be chosen . The army must ; be made the , defender of the country and of liberty , by means of i liberty and equality .

    Thus , election re established , conscription and replacing abolished , , the blood-tax , now , like other taxes , paid by the poor alone , ; , due from all , would be paid by all ; the standing army transformed d into a national militia ; every soldier made a citizen , and everyy citizen a soldier . As the Roman quirilus measured and defended d his field with his lance , each French citizen will defend with his is musket his country and his liberty . He has right and power , the le vote and arms ; he may no more delegate his arms than his vote , his is power than his right . He is his own soldier , as lie is his own legis-slator . He compromises himself as much in confiding to others his is lator . He compromises himself as much in confiding to others hisjs

    defence as in so confiding his sovereignty . He may not commit it himself to the protection of those who will become his oppressors , s . The military function is a right which admits of no representation , n , as it is a duty which admits of no substitute . Then , no more stand-ding army apart from the nation , but the entire nation in arms , naming lg its chiefs , classed according to age ; having military exercise in timeae ot peace , in the citizens' own communes , by instructing officers , * , quitting home only in time of war , and no longer making but one no possible and last war , the war of principle against fact , of right lit against force , liberty against tyranny , of the peoples against the kings , s . ( To be continued . )

    The French Republicans And The Coming Em...

    THE FRENCH REPUBLICANS AND THE COMING EMPIRE- ¦ The Republican society La Revolution has issued the following « g ? address to the Republicans of France : Citizens , —When our ' lathers , nearly fifty years since , allowed the soldier of- ofif Areola and Toulon to mount the throne , in one single vote they concentrateditedd every crime—a crime against the country , afterwards defiled by two invasionstonsM —a crime against humanity , on whom they brought misery and bloodshed-at-a a crime against free thought , which they delivered up to insolent force—alcrim * in »« H

• Citation
  • Northern Star (1837-1852), Nov. 13, 1852, page 10, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/ns/issues/ns2_13111852/page/10/