s much more: there is loss of time--there is
sickness induced by intemperance--there are the gaols, and
police-stations, and police, which would be much less expensive were the
intemperance of the country less. Thus, if you change a nation of
spendthrifts into a nation of economical men, you bring about a great and
glorious result. Such a nation never can be poor. It will always have
capital, and capital is the fund out of which labour is maintained, out
of which the arts that humanise and bless mankind spring--out of which
the soft humanities of life arise. Thus, then, the Freehold Land
Movement is attended with great moral and social good. Viewed
politically, also, it must be considered to have had the same result. It
is something to have made a man an independent voter--to have made him
feel that he has won his political rights for himself--that he has no
need to cringe and beg--to have taught him that--

"Man who man would be
Must rule the empire of himself."

Such a man will infuse fresh blood into the constituency. He will not
give a vote like a browbeaten tradesman or a dependent tenant-farmer.
His landlord will not be able to drive him to the polling-booth like a
sheep. On the contrary, he will go there erect and free--a man, and not
a slave. In every point of view, indeed, the benefits of the movement
are immense. In the neighbourhood of all our large towns estates are
being built on, where the members of the different societies living on
their own freeholds enjoy the blessings of pure air, and light, and
water, of which otherwise they would have been deprived. In Birmingham
the mortality amongst children has been already lessened 2.5 per cent. in
consequence of this very fact. If it be true that we cannot get the
healthy mind without the healthy body, this is something gained; but when
we further remember that the money thus profitably invested would most of
it have been squandered in reckless enjoyment--in body and soul
destroying drink--it is clear nothing more need be said. It was
calculated that out of 25,000 pounds received by the Birmingham Society,
20,000 pounds have been saved from those sinks of poison, the dram-shop
and the beer-house. Mr. James Taylor tells us, "Our working men are
beginning to ponder the often-quoted saying that every time they swallow
a glass of ale they swallow a portion of land. From calculations which
have been made, it appears that the average price of