ll he
became the leader and originator of the Freehold Land Movement, and then
for years his life was given to the public. He had but one speech, but
it was a racy one, and his voice was soon lifted up in every town in the
land. The plan pursued was to buy an estate, cut it up into allotments,
and offer them almost free of legal expense. There never was such a
chance for the working man as an investment, and thousands availed
themselves of it--and were all the better for it--especially those who to
pay their small subscriptions became teetotalers and gave up drink. And
yet a learned writer in _The Edinburgh Review_ had the audacity to write,
"Notwithstanding this rapid popularity, however, notwithstanding also the
high authorities which have been quoted on their behalf, we cannot look
on these associations with unmixed favour, and we shall not be surprised
if any long time elapses without well-grounded disappointment and
discontent arising among their members. However desirable it may be for
a peasant or an artisan to be possessor of the garden which he cultivates
and of the house he dwells in, however clear and great the gain to him in
this case, it is by no means equally certain that he can derive any
pecuniary advantage from the possession of a plot of ground which is too
far from his daily work for him either to erect a dwelling on it or to
cultivate it as an allotment, and which from its diminutive size he will
find it difficult for him to let for any sufficient remuneration. In
many cases a barren site will be his only reward for 50 pounds of saving,
and however he may value this in times of excitement it will in three
elections out of four be of little real interest or moment to him."
Happily the working men knew better than the _Edinburgh_ reviewer, and
the societies flourished all the more. The Conservatives were, of
course, utterly indignant at this wholesale manufacture of faggot votes,
as they were contemptuously termed, which threatened the seats of so many
respectable Conservative county members, but in the end they thought
better of it, and actually started a Conservative Freehold Land Society
themselves, a fact announced to me in a letter from Mr. Cobden, which I
have or ought to have somewhere in my possession. The societies
increased so greatly that a journal was started by Mr. Cassell, called
_The Freeholder_, of which I was editor, and was the means of often
bringing me into contact with Mr. Co