J. Ewing Ritchie

“ The man who refuses to make provision for the future cannot expect to prosper. Not to do so when a man can is a folly and a crime. Now then is the time to support the Freehold Land Societies. Thus when sickness or old age or bad times come, you will have something you can call your own. Habits of economy will thus grow and strengthen, and the reward will be sure. Of all luxuries, that of independence is the sweetest, and that these societies put within your reach. ”

“ From such plain, unpoetical traits of national character are born the arts and the graces, and all that is civilised and refined in life. A rich people is not less virtuous, and is certainly far happier, than a poor one. Therefore we say, let the Freehold Movement have wide support, for it is a schoolmaster, teaching the path leading the people of this country to wealth, and to the power and independence which wealth alone can give. ”

“ Such a nation never can be poor. It will always have capital, and capital is the fund out of which labour is maintained, out of which the arts that humanise and bless mankind spring—out of which the soft humanities of life arise. Thus, then, the Freehold Land Movement is attended with great moral and social good. ”

“ The present time is void of all political interest. There are no great struggles, and no great hopes and aims. England seems satisfied with coalitions. Yet this precisely is the time when the Freehold Land Movement finds most favour with the public. The reason is obvious. The times are good. The public has money to invest, and the public finds no such desirable investments as those offered by the Movement; hence it is the societies flourish; hence it is they gain the hearty support of all who can only spare a little, but who would put a little by against a rainy day. ”

“ We reply, viewed in a business light, it is simply a society for the purchase of land. It involves two commercial principles well understood—that purchasers should buy in the cheapest market, and that societies can do what individuals cannot. Till the movement originated, the purchaser of a small plot of ground had to pay in lawyer’s expenses connected with the purchase frequently as much as he paid for the plot itself. A society buys a large piece of ground. ”

“ The philanthropist labouring to remove the degradation, which compels to a life little better than that of the beasts that perish, men made in the image of their Maker—the advocate of Temperance aiming at the destruction of a vice which has slain its thousands, and which, like a destroying pestilence, still walks the land—the Christian seeking to permeate our age with a living faith—all these we claim as co-workers. ”

“ It is true Free-trade is not in danger, but Parliamentary Reform is. A large party headed by Lord Derby take their stand by the Bill of ’31, and maintain that concession has reached its limits—that class legislation is still to prevail—that the people are still to be ignored—that inside the constitution are still to be the privileged few, and outside of it the unprivileged many. ”

“ Anything offering a man inducement to save must be attended with beneficial results. As society is constituted, a spendthrift is a nuisance and a curse; the charge hitherto against the working classes of this country has been, that they have been reckless and improvident—that they are beggars one day and spendthrifts the next—that the money gained with such difficulty is squandered away with a wicked wastefulness, such as can be paralleled in no other part of the world. ”

“ Born of a working-man, it especially aims at the elevation of working-men. It comes to them, and offers them independence, wealth, and political power. Conceived in a provincial town, its ramifications now extend through the land. It demands no mean place in the consideration of the influences now at work for realising a future brighter and better than the past. The philosopher, the political economist, and the philanthropist must alike, then, deem it worthy of serious regard. On the part of a people, the absence of recklessness and waste is a great good ”

“ Members of Freehold Land Societies have been much wronged in consequence. One worthy disfranchised several claimants last summer, on the ground that the forty-shilling franchise, in all cases, should cost £50. It ought to be in the power of no man to arrive at such a decision. The question should be left to a jury—not to a barrister, eager of promotion, and for that purpose desirous to please the powers that be. But still a man may thus obtain wealth and a vote. And the man thus taught self-denial and providence will not be contented with remaining merely a freeholder ”

“ By means of the Freehold Land Movement, every county in England may be won. To the very natural suggestion that that is a game that two can play at, the answer is very obvious. In such a contest numbers will tell. A qualification that may be had for £30 will fall into very different hands to what it would were its price £1,000. For one aristocratic voter thus made, the people will have ten. An appeal to the masses can have but one result. Human nature must be changed before it can be otherwise. ”

“ We thus make our appeal to the friends of political progress. We aim at the advocacy of the movement which has for its end what you profess to desire. That movement we believe destined to be the salvation of our country, and we ask you to rally round it. ”

“ Now, when we recollect that the National alone has purchased 152 acres in Middlesex, and that each acre is capable, on an average, on subdivision, of making five votes—when we also remember that the remaining London societies have purchased between them another hundred acres in the same county—it is impossible not to feel, even supposing all the allotments have not been taken up, that out of the 250 acres thus cut up into allotments came the majority which returned Bernal Osborne as the champion of Liberalism and Free Trade. ”

“ The movement, besides its direct bearings, tends to bring about the results they desire. Not merely has political emancipation been the result of the movement—moral emancipation has invariably followed in its train.
p. 26We thus make our appeal for the support of the cause which is yet in its infancy, and which has a thousand trophies yet in store. Peacefully does it conduct the people to power, and give practical utterance to the spirit of the age. The doom of whatever keeps man in subjection to another has long been sealed. ”

“ However it may be desirable for a peasant or an artisan to be possessor of the garden which he cultivates, and of the house he dwells in—however clear and great the gain to him in this case—it is by no means equally certain that he can derive any adequate pecuniary advantages from the possession of a plot of ground which is too far from his daily work for him either to erect a dwelling on it, or to cultivate it as an allotment, and which, from its diminutive size, he will find it very difficult for him to let for any sufficient remuneration. ”

“ Instead of the people waiting for Government to extend the franchise, they can boldly help themselves. No man deserves the electoral privilege who cannot purchase it by his own industry and self-denial. At the present time, when provisions are cheap, when work is abundant, when wages are high and labour scarce, there is not a man in our streets who may not win the franchise if he has the will. ”

“ Thus, then, the Freehold Movement is creating everywhere a great moral revolution. It p. 20teaches the drunkard to be sober and the spendthrift to save. It comes to man in his degradation and strikes away the chain and sets him free. To the cause of Temperance it has been a most invaluable ally. For the money saved from the public-house it has been the most suitable investment. No wonder, then, that most of the leading men connected with the movement are also connected with the Temperance societies, or that it originated with them. It was born in a Temperance Hotel. ”

“ As the National is the largest of the existing Freehold Land Societies—last year its receipts being £190,070—we will briefly allude to its prospectus as a still further illustration of what a Freehold Land Society is. The especial objects of this Society are described as “to facilitate the acquisition of freehold land, and the erection of houses thereon; to enable such of its members as are eligible to obtain the county franchise, and to afford to all of them a secure and profitable investment for money.” In the National, all the expenses are defrayed out of a common fund ”

“ Then there are the benefit societies, which hold out such fine promises, which thus have won a support to which they have no claim, and have excited hopes which they can never realise. Of two thousand of these societies, the accounts of which were submitted to one gentleman in Liverpool a few years ago, all were insolvent. Much of the money belonging to them is wasted in drink, in foolish show and mummery; but the societies are based upon wrong principles, and can never become right. ”

“ If it be true that we cannot get the healthy mind without the healthy body, this is something gained; but when we further remember that the money thus profitably invested would most of it have been squandered in reckless enjoyment—in body and soul destroying drink—it is clear nothing more need be said. ”

“ Half the men who brawled in low pot-houses, while their wives and children were starving, over their beer, for the Charter, and nothing but the Charter, if they had stopped at home, and worked and saved their money, might, by this time, have realised the manhood suffrage of which they so idly dreamed; and if, at the next election, the men of progress are beaten, and the friends of class legislation and injustice prevail, it will be because the people were not true to themselves—p. ”

“ They make roads through it; they drain it; they turn it into valuable building-land; they thus raise its value; and they divide it amongst their members, not at the price at which each allotment is worth, but at the price which each allotment has cost. ”

“ In consequence of its excellent business arrangements, and of its immense capital it can do what local societies cannot. Already the Herts and Beds Society, the Bristol Society and the Cardiff Society, have become incorporated with it, and the arrangement has been found satisfactory to all parties concerned, the National having the power to purchase an estate, when a local society with its limited funds would be utterly unable to do so. The same can be said of the Conservative and other larger societies. Local societies have, however, this in their favour. The managers are well known men. ”

“ Men of character and substance should be chosen for trustees, and for directors men experienced in business, of persevering habits, and of unquestionable integrity. The solicitor and secretary ought to be favourably disposed to the objects of the society. The offices for business ought in no case to be connected either with a public-house or a Temperance coffee-house. Eating and drinking are bad adjuncts to business. As every society must incur expenses, it is not desirable to form societies in p. ”

“ The money that would formerly have been spent in the public-house has given many a man a freehold and a stake in the country, such as even a revising barrister must admit. The present system of revision of votes by barristers is bad. ”

“ If he be unable, from sickness or poverty, to continue his subscription, he is not fined, but is allowed to wait for better times. If he wishes his money back, he can have it returned, with a slight reduction for the working expenses of the Society. Juniors may be members. Actually these societies so far practically admit woman’s rights as to offer to the ladies the same desirable investments they offer to the sterner sex. In short, the Freehold Land Movement appeals to all p. ”

“ In reality it is much more: there is loss of time—there is sickness induced by intemperance—there are the gaols, and police-stations, and police, which would be much less expensive were the intemperance of the country less. Thus, if you change a nation of spendthrifts into a nation of economical men, you bring about a great and glorious result. ”

“ All classes and sects have railed round it. For churchmen there exists a Church of England Society. The Conservatives have formed a large and flourishing society for the manufacture of Conservative votes. ”

“ They need not wait for Government to emancipate them; they can emancipate themselves. For instance, the National will put any person desirous of the same in possession of a county qualification for North or South Essex, East or West Kent, Hertfordshire, West Sussex, North Hants, North Lancashire, or Middlesex. If, as some of the knowing ones maintain, we shall soon have a general election, of course the sooner one is put on the register the better. If not, the purchaser can take no harm: he will have his quid pro quo ”

“ James Taylor, it is desirable that a committee be appointed to suggest the most suitable testimonial to p. 11that gentleman, and to take such steps as may seem to them most desirable in furtherance of the object.” In pursuance of this resolution a committee was formed to receive subscriptions, of which Mr. Scholefield, M.P. for Birmingham, is Treasurer. This committee consists of most of the gentlemen connected with the London societies, and it is to be hoped that they are giving the subject the importance it really deserves. A prophet should be honoured in his own age and country. ”