The Express.
London, England, 1860-12-06 00:00:00

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LONDON, 11WIDIDAY, DDC. 6.

THI Freehold Land Societies of Birmingham
have had a general meeting for the purpose of
congratulating one another on their successful
progress, and for the purpose of conferring to-
gether on the beet mode of further developing the
great principle on which they are formed. The
excellent speech of Mr. Scuoutetzto, who pre-
sided on the occasion, summed up the chief results
of the movement, which, beginning less than fifteen
years ago, has gradually made its unobtrusive way
until its friends are now enabled to boast that in
the one locality in question there are compre-
hended within the sphere of its fraternity many
thouaand members. Lend being locked up by
law in large manses, and participation in its owner-
ship in portions ever so small being mulcted
by the excessive costs of transfer, the in-
dustrious majority of the community despaired of
being able to compass the privilege and enjoy-
ment which the ownership of land infers. For
their die qualification wee not merely social ; it
was, and was felt to be, likewise political. Par-
liament, consisting mainly of the landed clam,
persisted in maintaining in the counties the dis-
tinction between freehold and chattel property as
the basis of the franchise ; and while it refused to
render the purchase of land practically possible by
persona of moderate or humble means, it likewise
persisted in declaring that a freehold of forty
shillinos • year was • good title to vote, while
the annual payment of forty-nine pownds rent was
not. And to this preposterous doctrine and prac-
tice the law of Parliament still adheres. A oer-
tain amount of loose talk there has been by men
of opposite parties about their willingness to re-
duce the occupation franchise in counties from
forty-nine pounds to ten ; but even this
has not been done, and were it doss
the theory of law would then stand this—
either you must pay a 101. rent or you must
possess • 21. freehold : so great is the difference
held to be between the dignity and trustworthi-
ness of ownership and of mere occupation. One
would suppose that if our mien really coutem-
plated the change adverted to (which the experi-
ence of hut swim has caused many to doubt),
they would ass the importance of giving new faci-
lities for the acquisition of freeholds : for if some-
thing of the kind be not done, it is clear enough
that the tenant occupiers in counties must non•
aiderably outnumber the fee-fanners—a consum-
mation which our Conservative wiseacres can
hardly contemplate with satisfaction. Be that as
it may, however, we know that in both Houses of
Legislature there exists a deeply rooted repug-
nance to any and every immure that tends to
promote the acquisition of land by small inde-
pendent people. Among the governing body there
is a fixed superstition that the exclusive possession
of the soil, like the exclusive direction of the State,
properly belongs to the hereditary few ; and their
mode of defending their monopoly of both is
curiously identical. No absolutely insuperable
wall of privilege excludes the man of moderate
thrift and plebeian intelligence from either ; and
whenever the question of monopoly is raised one
is always met with the plausible answer—ls not
the gate open f why do you not come in 1 But
substantially, as we all know, this is • mere cheat.
In the use of land, the laws of title and trausfer
form a species of sunk fence that few single indi-
viduals have the moral courage or strength of
puree to go at. It was to bridge this antiquated
tome that Freehold Land Societies were first
formed ; and experience has proved that their
organization enables men to get over the difficulty
together who se isolated individuals could
never have thought of attempting it. By
purchasing estates with the common fund and
then distributing them in lots, men come to be
possessed of building sites, or of small portions of
pleasure sad garden ground, which they may not
only call their own, but feel to be as much their
own as the domain of the premier peer of Eng-
land. From this sacred foothold of the soil he
can neither he driven by coercion nor beguiled by
chicane on account of any lawful act he may do
or lawful word he may utter. He is a free assd
independent man as far as his homestead is con-
cerned ; sod inasmuch as the price of his modest
acquisition has been the result of years of frugality
and gradual investment, he is likely to bring to
his fee-simple home those habits of industry and
thrift which may enable him to retain it for his
life and bequeath it to his family. In • word,
the action of Freehold Land Societies tends to
resuscitate an independent yeomanry—s clam
which, during the last hundred and tifty years,
the ambitious expansion of great estates has slowly
but steadily been obliterating from the fine of our
country. This is their true claim to national
respect and gratitude, in comparison with which
the additional strength they may ha%e given here
awl there to one political party above another, is
..nworthy of serious consideration.
Mr. Bawer, in one of his telling and trenchant
le ',elms, enlarged considerably the field of view.
Vb.!. dwelling with much force of illustration on
C.A.; bear-fits the system aas likely to confer upon