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612 UttfC &£&(£¥? [Saturday,
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WHAT CAN BE DONE WITH A FREEHOLD. " One ...
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CALIFORNIA. AND BIRMINGHAM. The Bank of ...
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SOCIAL REFORM. EPISTOUE OBSCUBOEUM VIROR...
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Official Salaltles-The Law Of Primogenit...
der Republican Governments , the allowances generally made are proportioned to those institutions ?—Ihey are proportioned to our monarchical institutions , and , I think , to our aristocratical laws . I think that the law of primogeniture is the cause of there being a great number of persons with -very considerable incomes , and that those persons coming to London every year raise the whole scale of expenditure ; that all servants and all tradesmen have their wages and their prices augmented according to that scale , and that men out of office find some difficulty in conforming to that scale ; and that men in office would find it totally impossible , with a low scale of salaries . " Here , then , is the conclusion to which our Premier arrives in considering the question of official
salaries . The law of primogeniture gives a small number of people large fortunes . This small class dictates the style of living among Ministers and that class of persons . Ergo , Lord John and his colleagues must have at least £ 5000 a-year , or they would be voted out of the blessed world of fashion by the small clique of eldest sons whom an absurd and mischievous law has invested with more wealth than they can honestly or wisely spend .
612 Uttfc &£&(£¥? [Saturday,
612 UttfC & £ &( £¥ ? [ Saturday ,
What Can Be Done With A Freehold. " One ...
WHAT CAN BE DONE WITH A FREEHOLD . " One man , in one year , if you lent him land , as I have understood it , will feed himself and nine others . "—Sartor liesartus . There are two articles in to-day ' Leader which we would recommend to the special attention of all those who feel interested in the Condition-of-England Question . One is an account of the National Freehold Association taking formal possession of a small estate , within fourteen miles of London , which is to be cut up into freeholds ; the
other a narrative of the marvellous results obtained by the skilful and industrious cultivation of two acres of land . John Sillett appears to have paid a very high price for his small farm— £ 125 per acrenor does it appear that he had any previous knowledge of farming ; yet he raises food enough for the consumption of his family , and out of the surplus produce , after allowing £ 23 2 s . for rent , rates , and taxes , nets a profit of £ 51 Is . lOd . ; and all this by the labour of his own hands .
Now , if this could be done in the neighbourhood of Saxmundham , in Suffolk , on land which cost £ 125 per acre , what should hinder some of the newly-created freeholders , in the neighbourhood of Hampton-court , from trying to make an equally profitable use of their small estates ? From all we can learn they are placed in more favourable circumstances than John Sillett is . They are within reach of the best market in the world , and they have bought their land for about one-fourth of the price which he paid for his ; so that , unless the soil is much inferior , they ought to be able to draw as much profit from it .
If none of them feel disposed to imitate John Sillett ' s noble example , some of them might at least try what could be done by deputy . Let any benevolent freeholder , then , who is anxious for the diffusion of sound knowledge on this great question , try to find an enterprizing industrious man who will undertake to make the most of two acres , allowing him power to purchase his small farm within a certain period . Here is a mode by which philanthropists might effect much good , if they would only exercise discrimination in the choice of agents .
California. And Birmingham. The Bank Of ...
CALIFORNIA . AND BIRMINGHAM . The Bank of England returns show an increase of bullion , as compared with last year , to the amount of £ 1 , 807 , 901 ; and this , too , in spite of the large quantity of grain we have been importing during the last twelvemonths . What will the men of Birmingham say to this ? They used to frighten themselves at the prospect of all the gold in the country being carried away by foreigners in exchange for wheat and flour . Unfortunately for all these prognosticators , the amount of bullion in the Bank never was so largo as at this moment . How do the celebrated " Gemini" of the
Midland metropolis account for this ? Perhaps they will say that California has interfered with their calculations , and certainly there is some slight show of reason for ascribing our present Plutonian plethora , in some small degree , to that source . From recent returns we learn that tho quantity of gold exported from California in eighteen months amounted to £ 0 , 000 , 000 , of which threefourths was raised from the placers during last year
alone . If we can rely upon the supply continuing at the Kame rate , the quantity of gold thrown into the world ' s circulation annually will bo more than doubled , as the Russian mines in Siberia and the Ural Mountains only furnish about . £ 4 , 000 , 000 yearly . The cfleet of this upon tho money-niHrkia will begin to tell in tho course of a few years . And , if an annual supply of four-and-a-half iiiilliunu bterlimi from the Californian
diggings will have a serious effect on prices , how much more will they be affected if that quantity should be doubled or even trebled , as is not unlikely ? What a period of speculation will inevitably ensue in the event of such a flood of gold being produced so suddenly !
Social Reform. Epistoue Obscuboeum Viror...
SOCIAL REFORM . EPISTOUE OBSCUBOEUM VIRORTJM . IX . —Trade : its Breaches of Promise . To Erasmus . Septembei 19 , 1850 . My dear Erasmus , —I wish I could enjoy the public sanction of your name ; but I agree too fully in the reasons why you remain in the hostile camp to break through your reserve . To be complete , cano ! pur and open speaking must recognize the spirit of truth amongst those who , like yourself , are forced to pursue it in secret . I doubt
whether this need for reserve will oppress the pursuit of truth very long— after we see such men as Frederick Maurice , Charles Kingsley , and Edmund Larken , like yourself , active ministers of the Established Church , openly promoting discussion on one of the most strictly tabooed subjects ; but , meanwhile , tyranny visits some of us in forms too ap palling for bare courage to brave them . Your courage is shown in resisting the suggestion of your own strong intellect and courageous spirit ; and others of my personal friends are in the same position , not , perhaps , serving me the less for remaining where they do .
I address myself to you , because you have a practical knowledge of the poor and their condition . You adhere in the main to the doctrines of modern political oeconomy , and still you have so much largeness of purpose and so much love that you will hail rather than repel any considerations which may reconcile the substantial views of that unperfected science with views more genial and enlarged . In all I write I bear in mind the fundamental
points stated in my previous letters , —that by nature the labour of man upon the land can provide for himself , his mate , and their progeny ; and that the true aim of social ceconomy is to study the laws of sociation so that they tend to improve the condition of man , and not to render him worse oft" than he would be in a state of savagery . The political oeconomy of the books treats the accidents of civilization as if they were
fixed laws , and thus imparts to them as much of fixity as it can ; it gives a preference to the interests of produce over those of producer , thinking it most philosophical to ignore the very object of oeconomy , the comfort of the living human creature ; and it bestows its sanction on the bad consequences of accidents as the consequences of fixed laws , and therefore as necessities . It promises the man exiled from the land a substitute in the employments of trade ; when he finds those fail , it tells him to
" transfer his labour to another market" ; and when that fails , then he is surplusage . But , before I proceed to survey the condition of man exiled from the land and turned over to the employment of trade , I want to arrest your attention for a minute on the nature of trade , and some overlooked incidents of that idol of modern oeco « nomy and ceconomical legislation , " capital . " You will not account the enquiry " dry ; " since underneath this golden heap lies the crushed and fainting form of industrv .
What is trade ? Is it so long since trade began that we have forgotten ? Truly you might think so , for we see trade , which is only the attendant and helpmate of production , treated as greater than production , greater even than the producer . CEconomists discuss the interests of " Demand and Supply" as if that were some great Olympian commercial firm , with interests altogether more sacred than the men and women who occasion the demand and create the supply . Trade is not warm living man or woman , nor is it produce—good material food , raiment , or roof ; it is only a process . It is not a
vital necessity , but only a convenience . Vast , no doubt , even sublime in its vastness , and capable of being made yet vaster when its true place in civilization is properly denned . I do not underrate it ; I do not much respect such lax relative terms as " high" and " low , " " greater" and " less , " applied metaphorically ; and I will not say that trade is lower than Industry , Art , Knowledge , or Religion ; because , in strict truth , by being the servant of all those influences it may share their greatness—and docs , though not so fully as it might , and must . In England at present it is the chief instrument in furthering civilization—and that , I believe , is the
reason why our civilization is so imperfect , so prostituted to bad ends , so cruelly regardless of the greatest number of the living men and women within our four seas . ( Economy tells us that division of employments greatly enhances the capacity of the producer , and exchange greatly extends the value of the produce ; so that it is desirable to set apart from the number of those actively engaged in ministering to the wants of society some who shall not attend to the direct work of production , but to the business
of exchange ; and when that exchange is carried on , not by direct barter of produce , but by means of a representative of value , we call it trade . Facilities of trade do result in the benefits ascribed to them by ceconomists—they extend the partial benefits of nature , and so virtually extend the field of production , endowing the Russian with the produce of India ; the Englishman with the growth of America or the East . But there is one incident of trade most dangerous to the living men and women whose welfare we must consider before the
extension of commerce or the accumulation of wealth , and this incident is not kept in sight by ceconomists . Indeed , they wholly ignore its existence ; but you , Erasmus , will easily perceive how it abates the promises of " free trade . " So long as man is employed upon the land , so long does he possess a security that his labour will obtain for himself , his mate , and their progeny—those
dear ones whose hearts beat against his at morn , and again when parting for the transient death of night—food to keep up the lamp of life sparkling in their eyes and warming their flesh , raiment to nurse the fire , and lodging to shelter it from the winds and rain . So long as he is upon the land , his own hands can do that ; and , by the blessing of God , that work encreases his strength .
Observe that incident , my dear Erasmus : we who live in towns , far from these primary labours , have found it out to our sorrow ; for our work does not always encrease our strength and vitality , but sends us pale and stained with the traces of disease to the untimely grave . But the natural labour of man , working on primary works and amidst the free elements , augments his strength and quickens his vitality .
Each one of us that contrive to exist , howsoever , on the face of this earth , is supported by some portion of land , incalculably scattered , perchance , and entangled with the portions of the millions ; but , howsoever divided , there it is , somewhere . And the theory of the earliest division of employments is , that he who abandons the primary occupations of labour on the land , to betake himself to the secondary occupations of trade , shall be as well off as i f he retained his original portion , and better ; those who remain securing for him his share while he is catering distant products for them . But , when once he has lost his actual hold on the land , and
devotes himself to secondary employments , a new kind of promise engages his industry . The division of employments , once instituted , is capable of being carried out indefinitely , each division tending to encrease a special sort of skill , and thus to encrease the power of production ; and , therefore , the tendency of trade is to multiply those divisions of employment , as it has done in this country , until each man devotes his life to labour on some fraction
of a single product . He is always working in the faith that the piece of land destined for his support , however scattered , is cultivated on his behalf ; and that the produce at which he toils and launches into that whirlpool , " the market , " will be returned to him , after many days , in the shape of the produce from his landed estate lying afar off and unvisited by him with eye or foot . But , in the
immense circviit which his produce and that produce have to make , through an endless round of divided employments and as many processes of exchange , the produce has to undergo many an equation in the fluctuating measurement of value , a ^ ain and again parting with some share of its amount (" profit" ) in the adjustment of exchange , until at length it reaches him—but how ?
" Is this morsel of bread , " cries the weaver , " the whole produce of my land : I have given my days and nights to labour , —and is this all the return ? It has been eaten up by the way ! " And the thought occurs to him , that he had better not trust to that circuitous road , hut go to his land himself , and work it with his own hands . But where is it ? Impropriatcd . Ifc is true that , in all tho divided employments , industry has enormously multiplied the secondary objects of trade , and that everything is cheap—s ? o that even the weaver may command no end of
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Sept. 21, 1850, page 12, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_21091850/page/12/
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