Transcribed from the 1853 William Tweedie pamphlet by DavidPrice, email ccx074@pglaf. Many thanks to BirminghamCentral Library, England, for allowing their copy to be used forthis transcription.
by
J. EWING RITCHIE.
“The laws of this country recognise nothingmore sacred than the Forty-shilling Freehold Franchise; and avote for the county obtained by these means is bothconstitutional and laudable.”—Lord Chief-Justice Tindal.
“What he had heard from hon. members told him nothingmore than this, that the working population could easily, underthe old system, acquire the right of voting; and that every manwho owned forty shillings a-year could entitle himself tovote. Were they to be told that the people of England wereso degraded, so besotted, so dead to all sense of their trueinterests, that they could make no efforts to possess themselvesof the franchise?”—Mr.Disraeli.
LONDON:
WILLIAM TWEEDIE, 337, STRAND.
pricetwopence.
The following pages are reprinted from the “Weekly News and Chronicle”—theonly Paper that aims to be the organ of the Freehold LandMovement. They are now published in the hope that they maywin for that movement a wider support and a heartier sympathythan it has already secured. It is a child—it will bea giant ere long.
3, Clifford’s Inn.
April 1853.
The Freehold Land Movement is the great fact of the age. We propose to consider it in its origin, its present position asa means of investment for the middle and working-classes, and inits political and social and moral bearings. We propose totell what it has done, and what it seeks to do. Born of aworking-man, it especially aims at the elevation ofworking-men. It comes to them, and offers themindependence, wealth, and political power. Conceived in aprovincial town, its ramifications now extend through theland. It demands no mean place in the consideration of theinfluences now at work for realising a future brighter and betterthan the past. The philosopher, the political economist,and the philanthropist must alike, then, deem it worthy ofserious regard. On the part of a people, the absence ofrecklessness and waste is a great good; but the formation ofindustrial and economical habits is a still greater good. From such plain, unpoetical traits of national character are bornthe arts and the graces, and all that is civilised and refined inlife. A rich people is not less virtuous, and is certainlyfar happier, than a poor one. Therefore we say, let theFreehold 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 cangive. Thus much by way of introduction. That ourreaders may fully understand the subject, we shall begin at thebeginning, and explain.
Some time back