LANDLORDISM.

Thames Star, Volume XIV, Issue 4565, 22 August 1883, Page 2

LANDLORDISM.

(To the Editor of the Brening Star.)

Sir, —The pride and vain glory which actuates most men is nowhere more conspicuously seen than in the fantastic, presutnptious, pompous, and even blasphemous titles which they arrogate to themselves, and in no other appellation is there more of this vanity painfully displayed than in the name landlord. Ih the coarse and cant expressions of the people there is sometimes found the most graphic definitions, and probably the word " land damn " was an expression in common use, but since laid aside and forgotten, which meant the taking away a man's life, for land is an old word for a certain secretion to stop which—or the functions of nature —is to kill. Now strange as it may appear to say so, this is? the mode of action and exact effect of landlordism. The correct definition of landlord is those who originally robbed and continue to rob the human race of its heritage, for however acquired, no man can in justice hold or possess privately an interest in one parti - cle of land. Anything produced by the labours or genius of man may be bought, sold, or exchanged freely, honestly, and justly, but as man did not make or produce the land, he cannot inherit, acquire, possess, or transmit it to others. If the maxim which declares that no man can give or to be required to give a better title than he possesses is correct, then it follows that no just title can be given to private interest in land by any man, for no man possessed or ever has or can possess any just title to land, and it follows that those who claim to be the possessors or holders of land at the present or any former time, set up ah unjust and false claim. This would be the case under all or any circumstances, even if private interest in land conferred the. greatest blessings on humanity, but when it is proved to demonstration that private interest in land and the_ rents drawn from it has been, and is, a grinding tax upon the produce of past and present labor, capital, and industry, the reasons for its immediate abolition become intensified. Every section of painful aud struggling

labour—every movement of machinery, every invention of man—is brought under the operation of this cursed rent. The miner who, deep in the bowels of the earth, perils his limbs and life in search of hiddon treasure, and they who go down to sea in ships daring the danger of the deep, find their dear bought earnings diminished by the grasping landlord, for even the capitalist who employs the miner and the ship are tributary io the voiacious landlord. To meet the demand for rent, men, women, and little children are com» palled to work whether weak, sick, or otherwise unfit for labour. By rent, wages are so reduced that the shivering, hungry, and infirm are deprived of warmth, food, and medical aid or comfort. Miserable dens and cellars,reeking with pestilential stenches, so unwholesome that landlords would not put their horses or dogs into them, are crowded by large families without means of separate ing sexes or screening the demands of nature. Horribly demoralised, devilishly inclined, by such conditions, can it be a surprise that low drinking shops and consequent intemperance prevails; that prisons are filled with men, women, boys A and girls, who possess all the essentials^ for useful and respectable members qi society. The enormous value of land or high rents, is the great agent in producing the demoralization of women, who with any pretensions to beauty are exposed to dangerous temptations from the dissolute liberality of so wealthy and idle a class as high rent creates. The merciful and bountiful Creator is blasphemed by landlords' deeds, which obliterate belief from men's souls, and substitute a wild, blind, and cruel fatality. If however rent is too grievous to be born now, what will.it be in 20,30, or 50 years ? Can increase of numbers take place without the demand for ground even to stand on, becoming more fierce and intense every day ? Yet the robbery goes on, depriving the coming generation of their birthright. This system must' cease however unless robbery precedent justifies robbery present. Rent rightly considered is a value created by and belonging to the people. WereTthey not industrious and had they not excelled in manufactures and commerce, all taxation must have fallen upon the land, but finding the people wealth producers, the landlords abolished the old knight's service, and invented Customs, Excise, and Rent, shifting the burden off themselves upon the wages of the working man and artizan, and the earnings of the trader, manufacturer, and merchant, and thus the words landlord and landrobber are synonymous.—l am, &c Refobmkb.