The Irish standard. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn. ;) 1886-1920, 1918-05-11
The truth WILL out
"Merrie England" Was Catholic En-
gland, and Disastrous Change
Came With the Reformation.
English Land Reformer Traces Break.
ing Up Of the Yeomanry and the
Coming Of Servile Glass.

No other period of history is re-
ferred to so frequently by INSCRIPTIONS
writer's, in their attempts to vilify the
Church, as the Middle Ages. The
Dark Ages" are made to serve as
font, from which countless aspersions
on the character of the Church are
drawn. 1t is therefore gratifying when
writer's who view history in an I'M
biased manner present the truths as
they find them. Thus an English stu
dent of Sociology and Economics, R.
l.. Cultivate, Land-Reformer, Mem
Der of Parliament, in a recent trea-
tise on "The Land or Revolution"
George Allen and Unwin, London), ,
presents an interesting illustration Of
the disastrous results of the destruc-
ton of the social fabric in England
during and through the Reformation.
A religious apology is not intended
by the author, and this fact adds addi-
ton weight to what he says. Outh-
waite treats in Chapter 1 ("The Slave
Gang") of the folly of those who seized
the lands from the peasants and held
them for private pleasure, thus break
ing up strong yeomanry, driving the
men as unskilled laborers into the
miseries of city life, and at the same
time depriving the country of the
products of enormous tracts which
might today help materially in feeding
England. Treating of this unfortunate
development the author writes:
From Highland glens they (the men
driven from the lands seized) came to
the tenements of Glasgow because g..
100000 acres had been turned into
silent sanctuaries for the red deer.
From Midland villages they were driv-
en- to the mines and factories, from
territory where three Dukes held ad-
joining estates of 100000 acres, and
where the rearing of pheasants was the
dominant interest. From the villages
of the South, from territory of tens
of thousands of acres over which the
Rothschild staghounds hunted the cart
ed deer, from fertile lands at the gates
of the worlds capital they were driven
to seek employment as casual laborers
and inhabit the slums of London. So
the land monopolist has fed the indus
trial slave market"
This development is all the more
| deplorable when the previous condi-
| ton Of the population is considered,
| and the serious after effects of the
change are weighed. The author pic
| lures both in classic manner. He con.
tinues:
"Englishmen once had no dread of
hunger, for they once were free. Four
hundred years ago they had won their
way out of serfdom and had estab-
lished the Golden Age. Then no man
starved, for three or four days labor
provided sufficient food for the week.
So it was on the countryside, and so
it was in the towns where, united in
guilds, the workers were craftsmen
and free. And this came about by no
miraculous dispensation but through
the simple fact that those who wished
to till the soil had the opportunity to
do SO. Those were the days of Merrie
England, when the village surrounded
by its common fields sheltered yeo-
many the like of which the world had
not seen before, and has not since.
The common people, the Saxon serfs,
had won their way to freedom by way
of the land, for freedam consists in
not being compelled to beg leave Of an
other to toll and live. But those from
whose bondage the serfs had escaped,
the feudal holders of one-third of En-.
glish soil, determined to re-establish
seldom. The free land they saw was
the basis of freedom, and this they
proceeded to add to their estates. Rap
idly the transformation of the Golden
Age took place as the great estates
glow. Auc pcoSdulS IOSS III AcOSAAAOAo,
but were crushed by the mobiles aided
by foreign mercenaries Of despotic
kings. To these estates in the time
of Henry VIII were added the monas-
terry lands, held largely in trust for the
people. The guilds. were broken up,
and the unemployed men appeared.
Slavery, with all its pains and penal
ties, the branding iron and the gallows,
was established, and in the course Of
fifty years the Golden Age had passed
away. Soon after, In the reign of ELL
zabeth, the first Poor Law was placed
on the statute book"
A graphic picture of an unfortunate
and disastrous social and economic
development. Outhwaite-who, by the
way, is not a Socialist, as some.might
wish to infer from his attack on CAPT
tal-identifies the time of the change