The Daily Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1860-12-05 00:00:00

MR. JOHN BRIGHT, M.P.,

IN 13IRAIINGIIA.A1.

FREEItOLD
,LAND AN])
,
SOCIETY SOIREE.
BY BRITISH AND. IRISH MAONETIO 'IELEdRAP.H.
The
,annual nidetifig and
,ballet of one' of the Eir-
mingharn Freehold Land' and 'funding ~:oCieties was
held.in thd Town-144 Birmingham, last. evening.
.After
tea; Of which 1,200 partook; Mr. Schofield, M.P., took
the chair, and the Aston Hall Estate was then balloted.
On the platform were i'dr. John Bright, M.P., Mr. E. A.
Leathern, M. 1);, Mr. James White, M.P.,- ic., Vic. The
large hall was, well filled,- and the meeting was a very
,
entusiastic one.
The Chairman in a brief speech opened the proceed-
ings, and then called upon Dr. M'lCenzie, the Rev. Dr.
James: Begg and Dr: Ilak-er (Ediabargli), who moved,
seconded; and supported a resolution to 66 effect that
"The. greater the litinihei Of lid-sells iriteteSted irk real
proPeity the greater Will fie i d .odigitod of the
stability_ot good,and useful institutions, and that Free-
p
hold Land.and Buildine• Secieties will, giv,e the industrious
.
Classes that stake," This .reselution, as .were the suc-
ceeding ones, Was ace-I;unation„
The second resolution, noVed by Mr. White, M.P.,
seconded by Mr. flontems, London, and supported by
Mr. Bright, M.P., was as followS :—" That it is the
deliberate opinion of this meeting that the laws which
interfere with the natural and free division of land, viz.,
the laws of primogeniture and of entail, and the need-
less I'l4loh:dentate the sale and transfer of land arising
front thridiffictfity of giving and obtaining valid titles
under the, pre,sentpractiee in this.dethitty, .are injurious
to ingstry and to the well-heing and independence of
the people, and that. aholition.of theie and the.
removal of there imliedinients would rapidly improve
the social condition and raise the ehtfraeter of our agri-
cultural population," , .
Mr. Bright, who, onl. rising,
~was 'loudly applauded,
Maid,—Lobking beak over the many and 'various nieet-
ings• which have been .held in this hall, he dpubted
whether any so held had been of a more. remdrkable
character than that that night. He had some figures laid
before him; with regard to the working of the society,
and he learnt from them that there were no less
than 8,000 or 9,000 members or subscribers to it in the
town of Birmingham and in the neighbourhood; and
that out of this. number 95 out out of every 100, he was
told; were what might be called real borul fide working
men.. Now, if. that meeting was foraged of that class,
and was 0, representation of that 'class, then he said it
was, ti.:. reMarkable 'itching, and that. it Was to be taken
by the.pablic as a .proof of the chafe:der of the people of
Birmingham and the district, for it proved their industry,
their skill, their frugality, their endurance, their self-
denial, arid their noble aspirations after something good
and higher. It was a protest also against the laws which
had excluded . this great body of people from power and
rights, and against the laws which excluded them from
becoming possessed of the soil. Now, perhaps if these
societies were thus to find a mode as it were, a. chink, .a
small doorway, which their law-makers had not remem-
bered to shift tip, by Whiehtlie people could purchase a
right which was free to all, it would do a good and
great thing. Although. England was a free country,
it at the same time was. one of sore oppressioa.
We had . personal freedom, it Was - true, 'and
freedom of speech, or some of those who
were present would not be so, but under lock and
key. (Applause.) They had free trade, too, and he'
asked if there was anybody who were hot gainers, and
not sufferers-bv-it.. But-there was one point on which
they were not -free. The land,of England was not free,
and so far from its being made so, the'laws of England
were of such a nature that they Were opposed to
such freedom. Yet a foreigner, on being told, this.
Would not credit it, seeing as he would that we had
industrial freedom and personal freedom. Although we
had everything
.else free, it Was held that if land were
freed in the same way it Would be ruinous, but that was
not. so. The land was in bondage, and the people were
in bondage with it. This the people should complain of
to, parliament, and contend against it, and then it would
be removed. He then proceeded to speak of the evils of
the law of primogeniture and entail. lie kheW that,
with regard to the law-of primogeniture; he should be
told in leading articles that it only came into force when ,
a man died withotit. a 'will,. but that would not prove
that the law was a good one—viz., that one member
of the family should. be a genti man, and the other a
beggar, was an infamous and injurious law. The law
of primogeniture was destroyed in the State of Virginia
in Antiertea, viz,, for reason that it was a bad and
malevolent law. Its abolition there had been followed.
by a great good to the State, and the result would be
the same if the law were abolished in England. One
bad thing never. existed alone, and with the law of pri-
mogeniture was intimately connected 'the law of entail,•
slaw which had been handed down to us from thd time that
a great and brutal conquest was- made. of this country.
He hoped that the' time was not far distant, when the
shadow of a shade of these laws.would not be left upon our
statute book, He should be told that the laws of entail
in England were not what-they used to be, and he knew
se, but fifteen years ago there was a law passed in
Scotland for the 'impose of making the laws of the
country a little less barbarous. Now he should
be told that father and son could. cut off the
entail; but he' 'replied that the
_general interest of
man was against that course. lie proceeded to
denounce the mode of. transferring land, and said
it was done in language such as not one in twenty could
comprehend it. Suppose one system
,of entails were
followed up with regard to .all other property that was
bought and sold—viz., that before they bought a thing
they should ascertain for sixty years back that the seller
could give a valid title to it. He asked what would be
the result ? Why it would put' an end to industry,
commerce, and social order. There must be' an object
in the law of entail„and that object was to keep safe the
:land in the hands of the great proprietors, and to destroy
all the independent yeomen in the kingdom. England
was the only 'civilised and christian country in the world
in which the possessors of the soil had gradually beanie
less and less. In France and 'America the number Of
proprietors, on the contrary, were increasing constantly.
Here in England, however, for the• last sixty years the
number of landed proprietors had been steadily dimi-
nishing. Socially, he took this state of things to be an
unnatural system, Recently, in turning over the
" Encyclopaedia Britannica," 'he found it there stated
that the law of entail was an advantage to
society; inasmuch as'while it made only one of ten rich,
it made the other nine 'industrious, so that.they some-
times made themselves greater and richer than their
elder brother: Why, if that were so, he replied, then
let the State take the property. Altogether, two results
followed from the system of the law of entail. Ist. It
centered the power in the territorial classes; for, as it
had been said, Where they arc possessors of land, they
are the possessors of power—power which degraded the
farmers, and to the labourers was the source of perpe-
tual abasement. Bancroft, in .his history of the coloni-
sation of the United States, described the evils of the
working of this law in the State of Carolina, and its
utter failure to build up there a territorial power such
as existed in this country. Bancroft said that the
instincts of the aristocracy dreaded the power of the
proprietary yeomanry, 'and such is undoubtedly the fact.
He asked .them to look at their own country, and to
take their own farmers, and look at their conditions from
a political point of view, , and how did they find
them ? Why,.either politically dead, or in a state of
of suspended animation. (Applause.) It was a well- ,
known fact that the farmers did- not return the comity
members. Well, let them go into Wales; where the.
farmers were Liberal and Dissenters, and, what would
they find ? Why, that of all the representatives sent to
parliament from, Wales, there wasThot-cine who in the
house represented the farmers of Wales, either in their
political or religious views. Then, if they went to
Ireland, where Presbyterianism is powerful, what did
tliertlntrr-7-IVny,--rnat 7tlle "Presbyterians returned
nobody to represent them in parliament. This state of
things was. accounted for by the fact that these were'
only the tillers,of the soil, and that it, was the proprie-
tors and others,. under whose shadow they might be said
fionrfe ersl
eyogb
aarasdc
rtehtsoe iotrfheeloangnus
sectnoi
ohe
nel
ddoifc
nott ap t eot
ladi
iec
se,Ba
ruhete.
oi ff tt ee
h.
to. exist. Hence, these men dare not think and act '
fasenlvwerss,
(Mr. Bright)
could not find time to ta,ke. theni under his charge.
he had enough to do without looking after them.
The .other day he was reading a book called, "The
Recreations of a Country Parson," which was a work
made up of • articles from .1)-ceser's. 21itgazine, and in
which the writer spoke of the *condition of the labouring
classes in his county: He (Mr. Bright) wished to know
'what county it was.-- •At page- 161 of his book,
this clergyniari, in-speaking of the plUtigtimen,
was the most hard-workingand ill-paid of all mankind,
and that no horse, mule, donkey, camel, or, other beast
of burden. in the world, ;went through as.much exertion
is did that humble being to obtain the necessaries of
life. His -feet had. been wet since, six o'clock •
or directly after he, took his scanty breakfast, and he
had nothing but a little tea and coarse bread for dinner,
after which he would have nothing 'until his twelve or
fifteen hours of labour and toil upon these' scanty meals
were completed. Still that man thought of his home,
his wife, and his family,- and the miseries attending them.
The author then went on to say, that he knew nothing
of,the laws of political economy, and did not understand.
them, and that he was glad the responsibility of applying
these laws rested with abler heads than his own. Ms,.
Bright. wished to know why this clergyman knew nothing
of political economy. If he could take the Word of God
from Genesis to the Book of Revelations, could read it,
understand it, and forcibly and powerfully describe and
hdiescxin Bright)sitsmeaii
mysterious
ngwi,shinedtritcoaktehoaNnvdwhyliecould
not take
as it was,
Smith's "Wealth of Nations" and bring_ his polished
intellect to bear upon it with all its force, and solve they
fearful. problem, and say why these farm labourer
worked harder than any of the brute beasts that God
had made. (Loud applause.) They were not,.. to think
for a moment that that state of things had been 'ordained
that
be
ehasht
eiht -ahanidtab-edeirne.,co4odlaiinofedprboypellr
tthis
longer believe as he had been taught to believe, that
resent the
country, such as we saw. If it were so, he could no
Providence was a benificent being. At p _
by
yerGe God,
dr
• freed
in the towns and cities. They' had _
must now free the land, and make
whole life of England was to be found
commerce, and they
it as free of sale as corn. The freeing of corn had been
good for the aristocracy and the landed interest, and the
same rule applied' tofthe freeing of land ; for the laws
of primogeniture and entails on the subject was a great
one, and he denied that their object in freeing the land-
owners was to force them to sell their estates. If land
were freed every parish would rise in value, and not
only that, but 'the farmer would be better off, and the
wages of the labourer would be much higher. He
was in Paris the other day, and he -was told that
the agricultural labourers received four shillings and
sixpence per day. In America the land did not produce
nearly as much as it did in this country ; but by freeing
the land here, the wages question would not only 'be
altered, but the farmer and' labourers would become
possessed of greater power, and they should also thereby
breathe the breath of life into those nowpolitically dead.
In discussing this question, then, they were only doing
that which was their duty, since it was for the public
good. If land were free, as corn and cotton, it would
give power to the Government as the dispenser of jus-
tice, and at the same ' time would give contentment .to
the people .in the abolition of a great and grievous
wrong. '(Loud applause.)
Votes of thanks ,terminated, the proceedin

• THE lIEROES or FREEDOM—This was the title of a
very eloquent and impressive lecture delivered lnst night,
in the Bond-street school-room, by the Rev. W. Chan-
fling. The audience, though not very numerous, were
attentive, and appeared gratified with the information
which the lecturer had taken the trouble to collect and
impart to them.