named.  If these things were done by Friendly Societies, what will not be done when the advantages of Freehold Land Societies are well and widely understood?  At this time there is much maudlin sympathy expressed on behalf of the working classes.  They need it not.  They are stout enough and strong enough to take care of themselves.  The Freehold Land Movement has given them an investment, and they have become saving men.  The money that would formerly have been spent in the public-house has given many a man a freehold and a stake in the country, such as even a revising barrister must admit.  The present system of revision of votes by barristers is bad.  Members of Freehold Land Societies have been much wronged in consequence.  One worthy disfranchised several claimants last summer, on the ground that the forty-shilling franchise, in all cases, should cost £50.  It ought to be in the power of no man to arrive at such a decision.  The question should be left to a jury—not to a barrister, eager of promotion, and for that purpose desirous to please the powers that be.  But still a man may thus obtain wealth and a vote.  And the man thus taught self-denial and providence will not be contented with remaining merely a freeholder; he cannot make himself that without becoming intellectually and morally a better man.  He will be a better father of a family, a better citizen, better in his public and private life.  Workmen of England, Ireland and Wales, we call upon you to rally round the Freehold Land Societies.  They exist for your benefit alone.  They will give you all that you require—desirable investments for your savings—habits of economy and political influence.  You have no need to cringe and beg.  All that you want, you have it in your power to obtain.  Never was there a more favourable time for you to avail yourselves of

the Freehold Land Societies now springing up in your midst.  You have now money you can put by.  When the Corn Laws cursed the land, it would have been mockery to have asked you to do so then.  Now the case is altered, and you must each one of you seek to elevate yourselves.  As Mr. Cobden aptly remarked, half the money annually spent in gin would give the people the entire county representation, and thus also provide desirable investments for the money that you are morally bound to lay by against a rainy day.  The man who refuses to make provision for the future cannot expect to prosper.  Not to do so when a man can is a folly and a crime.  Now then is the time to support the Freehold Land Societies.  Thus when sickness or old age or bad times come, you will have something you can call your own.  Habits of economy will thus grow and strengthen, and the reward will be sure.  Of all luxuries, that of independence is the sweetest, and that these societies put within your reach.  Their failure is impossible.  They are the societies for the age: they will parcel out the English ground amongst English men: their triumph will be the emancipation of the working man from the misery and wrongs and degradation of the past.

We appeal also to men who aim at the moral reformation of our race—who care little about politics—who believe that in a world of knaves it is difficult to get a good government at all, and we claim their support.  The mission of the Freehold Land Movement is the same with theirs.  The philanthropist labouring to remove the degradation, which compels to a life little better than that of the beasts that perish, men made in the image of their Maker—the advocate of Temperance aiming at the destruction of a vice which has slain its thousands, and which, like a destroying pestilence, still walks the land—the Christian seeking to permeate our age with a living faith—all these we claim as co-workers.  The movement, besides its direct bearings, tends to bring about the results they desire.  Not merely has political emancipation been the result of the movement—moral emancipation has invariably followed in its train.

We thus make our appeal for the support of the cause which is yet in its infancy, and which has a thousand trophies yet in store.  Peacefully does it conduct the people to power, and give practical utterance to the spirit of the age.  The doom of whatever keeps man in subjection to another has long been sealed.  The proud patrician of Imperial Rome—the feudal baron of the Middle Ages, have passed away.  Even Oxford abandons the faith at one time it armed to defend, and no longer acknowledges the

“Right divine of kings to govern wrong.”

Onward to victory is the people’s march.  The decree has gone forth, they must be free.  For this consummation we have ever hoped and striven.  From the contentions of party we have ever turned to advocate whatever gives to the people moral dignity and political power; to others we leave the cause of the privileged classes—the advocacy of existing wrongs—the preservation of existing abuses.  We plead the cause of the unenfranchised, but of the unenfranchised who have faith and energy and self-denial enough to win the franchise for themselves.  We conjure them to bestir themselves, to give their support to the Freehold Land Movement, to quit themselves like men.  We need at the polling booths independent voters, not men who can be bullied or bribed—to make such is our aim, for such England needs, aye, and needs more than ever now.