LXXXVIII.

LANDOWNER AND LABOURER.

Mr. EDITOR,-Awhile ago, I took the liberty of sending you some thoughts on the operation of evangelical principles upon the relation subsisting between landowner and tenant. I endeavoured to shew that the necessary effect of those principles would be to establish the relation on the basis of justice, and, on that foundation, to augment the welfare of both parties, and to diffuse peace and happiness through the land..

With your leave, I now propose to shew further how the landowners, in many instances, have the power in another respect to add to these blessings to an incalculable extent, while their own property would be materially improved.

During the struggle for the downfall of the corn-laws, a meeting at Nottingham was interrupted by a workman who came forward to propose the consideration of a plan for colonizing unemployed industry on waste land at home. The interruption being considered unseasonable, he was stopped by the cry, "It won't do, Tom!" But though it won't do for the mass to have more objects in view than one at a time, Tom must, on some day or another, be heard, if the country is to be preserved from being rent asunder by civil broils and

commotion.

A duke may walk into one house of parliament, and a sporting baronet into another, for the avowed purpose of upholding the institutions of this country. But if the one goes thither with the maxim, that he has a right to do as he pleases with his own; and the other avows himself a great preserver of game, and then, laying his hand on his bosom for the purpose of enhancing the value of his estates, declares on his honour-and his honour is dearer to him than lifethat his farms would let for two hundred pounds a-year more if the game were not preserved; all the parsons in the world cannot rescue those two legislators from the imputation of being strangers to the Divine law. They know not that, what in a short space, must by inevitable necessity be entirely

beyond a man's controul, is not his own. They know not that the earth was created for the habitation and sustenance of man; that, through the interchange of mutual benefit, the great human family was to be one in the Divine sight; and that he who strives to thwart that Divine law, is waging war against Heaven. In spite of the dreams of political economists, the rapid increase of population in these islands, is an arrangement of Infinite Wisdom, for opening our closed eyes to the necessity of being prepared to fulfil that Divine law. Tom must be heard, though all the landowners in the kingdom were to shout, "It won't do, Tom!" They, no doubt, would fancy they were deprecating revolution. I tell them plainly, if they mean to prevent revolution, and save their property, they must hearken to Tom and the Divine law; and if that be to side with mere mob law, then is the Government itself yet more revolutionary.

For some years, a plan has been in agitation for inclosing a considerable portion of a large bay on the coast of England. The Government authorities have taken no part in the plan, yet have afforded every facility for its execution. They have consented to waive all but a small proportion of the land ultimately redeemed from the sea, for the entire benefit of the projectors. Without carrying forbearance and self-denial to the like extreme, the landowners may, with like freedom from risk and expense, acquire a substantial property which, like that of the Crown, exists at present in name and appearance only.

In the neighbourhood of the bay in question, the commons were enclosed many years ago, under the usual authority of an Act of Parliament. No doubt, the inducement to the inclosure was the hope of increased property. Whether the result was an increase of property to any one but the lawyers and surveyors employed, is not very obvious. As far as the eye can judge, the bulk of the inclosures is pretty much what it was fifty years ago; and the conversion of it by the landowner into profitable farming, would be attended with an expense far exceeding the value of the fee-simple. An apt illustration enough of the ducal maxim, of doing what a man

likes with his own. There was a struggle with heaven; a destruction of the feeble privileges of the poor; and it would be difficult to say what the result has been, save "Woe to them that add field to field!"

But let us suppose that a hint were borrowed from the Divine law, and from Government, and from Tom: how then? The landowners who, generous fellows! have seldom sixpence of their own to bless themselves with, say, we have not capital to make the inclosures better. Says Tom, my comrades and I have: we have the best of capital: we have sinews and tools and industry: we are ready to go into partnership with you, like the bay-inclosing projectors with Government. Do you supply land, and we will furnish capital. We don't ask you to retain so small a proportion only of the land as will satisfy the Crown in the inclosed bay. If you will be content with a fourth, we will undertake to bring the whole into cultivation, to the satisfaction of arbitrators chosen on both sides, who shall also divide the improved land between us. But we must have the other three-fourths as our absolute fee-simple. We will have no feudal lords gallopping over our fields, with all the rabble of the country at their heels. We will be your peaceable, thriving neighbours, but not your slaves. We will shew your children how to be happy, without being their toadeaters. We must be entitled to take any materials from the ground for building our dwellings thereon; and you must be prevented from turning us adrift again, to the disturbance of the community, by tempting us from our little freeholds, by large offers to purchase, made with money borrowed from money-brokers and other pests that encourage you in your mischievous extravagance.

Are these views revolutionary? No mere worldly consideration indisposes a man to revolution more than a per manent property in land. Here then is an arrangement for marshalling hundreds of industrious members of the community on the side of law and order, of whom the nation now stands in a frequently recurring state of apprehension. There is scarcely a district which has not room for the ex

periment. Whose property would be injured? The landowner gets full value for one part out of four, which are now valueless for any purpose but the maintenance of feudal barbarism.

Yet the question must be fairly examined. It cannot be denied that, under this arrangement, the present race of landowners would not continue the exclusive legislators. They must take the laborious part of the community into partnership. That, no doubt, will be rather galling. But it will be better than to upset the state with universal suffrage, and vote by ballot, and other Americanisms. It will be difficult to stave off those changes by any measures, short of enlisting the hardworking man on the side of secure and peaceful

content.

I most heartily wish the landowners well. I have given them a proof of good will, by shewing them how they may increase their property. I will give them a further proof, by recommending them to give their whole hearts to evangelical principles; not such as they may hear from the college gentry who blackguard their dissentient fellow-creatures, but such as are put forth in this letter; and then every one of them will find, to his great joy, that he really has something of "his own."

LXXXIX.-CIVILIZATION.

MR. EDITOR,-Casting my eye, the other day, over your first number, I had my attention suddenly arrested by the following passage:

"Why should not every merchant and every ship's captain, like the Sailor Evangelist of Dawn Island, be a loud preacher of righteousness, not in word, but in power? The plain dealing of an honest and sensible man would come home to the hearts and common sense of mankind, however barbarous, however dull of comprehension. It would be religion actually present, not merely talked about. It would be the plain and obvious teaching of visible example: the example of christian self-denial, where every temptation existed to abuse; where the power to overreach and oppress could only be controlled by better feelings; where integrity, moderation and charity would be doubly esteemed as the fruits of unfettered good will."

to me.

Instantly our noble-minded countryman Brooke occurred Here, said I, is the very man described. These things has he done: these blessings has he conferred. But does he really believe that by coming to this country, and rousing the spirit of adventure and zeal here, the good work so auspiciously commenced by him can be in any respect promoted? If he has returned to England for the purpose of finding in an Englishwoman a wife with a mind congenial to his own, I heartily wish him success in his enterprize, and both of them a safe voyage to Borneo. There may they flourish, and raise a progeny to perpetuate a race of Manco Capacs in the males, and of Mama Ocollos in the females! Happy Dyaks, who shall be blessed with such guardian angels! May they long continue to ward off piratical ravagers from those fruitful shores! to execute judgment and justice in the land! and thus to establish the peaceful reign of the Great Saviour in works of mercy and of love! That blessed reign may then be secure, when it is the gradual growth of goodness and wisdom fixed in the habits of the people by their own free choice and rational adoption.

But if the visit to England be merely to establish English colonists and English missionaries in Borneo, what a sad mistake has this excellent man made! Humble he may be; and like many humble men disposed to think others better qualified than himself for the improvement of Malays and Dyaks; but with troops of adventurers and zealots crowding the shores of Borneo, what can all Brooke's past efforts avail to stem the flood of civilized pollution? "Poor, poor Dyaks!" Your last state will be worse than your first: "If ye had been blind, ye had been without sin; but now ye say, we see ; therefore your sin remaineth."

You, Sir, may be thought to have neared Utopia, when you supposed every merchant and ship's captain to be a preacher of righteousness. But I am sure you did not approach the blissful land nearer than Brooke himself has done in coming to England to further commercial and religious establishments for the good of the Dyaks. Had he been a mere theorist and accomplished nothing, one might easily understand why