THE BRITISH ARTISAN. A Gloomy Future. Eviction, Starvation, Taxation.

Te Aroha News, Volume II, Issue 86, 24 January 1885, Page 5

THE BRITISH ARTISAN. A Gloomy Future. Eviction, Starvation, Taxation.

Thus " Northumbrian " in " Reynold's Newspaper " (London) for November 16 :—: — In all the stories which have been told of obstinate bravery confronting determined assault, none surpasses the story of the defenoe of Plevna during the Ruaso-Turkish war. Month af termonth the heavy shells of theenemy burst overhead with sullen reiterative boom. Famine laid its gaunt hands on the besieged, and their aiok died in the long, dreary days, when communication was broken in the outside world, and when the lines of the foe engirdling them oufe off all sustenance or relief as with a wall of fire. Between Plevna and the position of the British artisan to-day, I think a close parallel may be traced. On the one hand, the Lords are bent on withholding from him the franchise extension which a remarkable series of working men's meetings have proved moat conclusively that he covets. On the other band, Mr Chaplin and a few Tory squires of a like calibre are determined, if they can, upon forcing a tox upon corn. Above all, the coming winter looms disastrously before every workman in the land. Here is literal famine— a famine as bad aa anything suffered in Plevna— a famine which to day on the banks of the Tyne, of the Tees, of the Wear, and of the Clyde, to ?ay nothing of the Thames, is reducing thousands upon thousands of British artilicers, skilled workers, to the most beggarly \*ant. Thus threatened by a tax on the food which to-day they are unable to buy, threatened with the spite of Lords, and undergoing the actual pangs of starvation, I contend that the British workman stands in his Plevna, and that from Plevna he is bound to deliver himself. There must be no comprimise, and no surrender. Out of the trial and trouble of today may be snatched not only deliverance for ourselves, but for our children. Everywhere I tee the indications of change. The Skye agitation in the farthest ■orfch is only a sign how men's hearts are searching through social questions. The poor have been the door-mat ot the rich long enough. Lazarus is tired of letting ih« dogs of Dives lick his sores— tired of the paltry fall of crumbs from the rich man's table— tired of the blasphemous cant that the good God designed one man in a thousand to be rich and happy, and the ether 999 poor souls to pass through a line of purgatorial pains. Nothingiiallowedtobelongofrightto the millions of honost harkwording British artisans who create the wealth of the country, and who constitute ita backbone. Look at our defenceless condition, even in the matter of our hou»o roofs. We have not ertn the security of the rats in the sower*. Mr Froude, by no means an extreme thinker, put this pretty plainly the other day when he wrote : — " Not a mile from the place where I am now writing, an estate on tho coast of Devonshire camo into the hands of an Bnglifh duke. There was a primitive village upon it>, occupied by sailors, pilot*, and fisherman, which is described in Domesday Book.and was inhabiced at the Conquest by the actual forefathers of tho late tenants, whose names may be read there. The hon?cs were out of repair. The duke's predecessors had laid out nothing upon them for a century, and had been contented T\ith exacting the rente. When the present owner entered into p»s?eßjrion it *as represented to him that if tho riltage was to continue it must ba rebuilt, but that to rebuild ifc would be a needless expense, for the people, living ns they did on their wages as fishermen and seamen, would not cultivate his land, ani were useless to him. The houses were therefore dimply torn down, and nearly half the population was drivon out into tho world to find nevr homes. A few more such instances of tyranny might provoke a, dangerous crisis." Here, then, is a case, one of the hundreds which are annually occurring, when we are dealt with like dogs. Flesh and blood will bear much, but there comes a pointy at which endurance ends and resistance begins. We never were a violent people, ana we think before we act; but it is quite within the bounds of probabilities that the cry for justice which goes up at the next general election may send so strong a Radical party to the House of Commons that the shillyshally legislation ot the past will be swept away in the twinkling of an eye. As one conmentator on Mr Froude's story of eviction says : — "There, for no offence whatever, a con-! siderable village population — who, if longcontinued ancestral occupancy goes for anything, had the full moral and equitable right to live on this particular portion of their native soil— were rudely driven out to what must have been to them a cruel banishment. Some grave political crime, some gross offence against law and morality, would hardly have justified such a punishment, in which old and young, women and children, Mere alike involved. Who can toll the mental anguish, the physical suffering involved in such an eviction ; the burning sense of injury, the rending of eocial ties, the pain and loss of having to seek a fresh home and begin a new life at the will of an unknown and unseen depot ? And the powerful Government of our free England with its high-sounding declarations— that every man's house is his castle, that rich and poor ar» alike in the eye ot its laws ; and that there is no wrong without a remedy - was absolutely powerless to give these poor villagers any protection whatever! By r oo^nising private property in land, the State ha 3 set up in its midst a number of petty lords more powerful than any government ; and w hose decrees, m hatever injustice they may do, or whatever misery bring to British subjects, no court of law or equity is able to reverse." In these last lines lies the key-stone of our agitation. As the laws go, we are power1 less. The Home Secretary the other day, in speaking ot the Skye agitation, said that by all means "the law" must be upheld. No thought is taken of any justice which may lie behind agitation or of the wrongs which might be buried at its root. All that ; we hear is that the present condition of Uto be continued. This attitude in other matters will not do for the English work ing-class populatirn in England. We only care for the vote as a means of bettering our position. Wo know it means more wages and lees taxation, better homes and a little comfort therein ; and for the vote, because it means that, and much more than that, we shall fight and fight in our Plevna ot today until we win a victory along the whole of the line. Evicted like curs whenever some irresponsible landlord takes the whim into his head, starved like forgotten cats whenever trade grows bad, taxed X y ,c our eyes, sweated early and late to support a ohurch, a nobility, and an upper castt which docs no good for us in this world, and which cannot help us in the next, we are the veriest slaves. Other nations before this would have used rougher measures. We wisely, and with tho strong courage and common sense inherent in the British char acter, claim only the vote. In that lies oui deliverance, and by tfiat lever we intend t< make a most marvellous change in this lane of ours, and right speedily too*