This is the problem that must be answered; for it is one that is repeatedly occurring, and constantly before us, and that cannot be put aside.
In fact, the poverty of the great body of mankind, the world over, is the great problem of the world. That such extreme and nearly universal poverty exists all over the world, and has existed through all past generations, proves that it originates in causes which the common human nature of those who suffer from it, has not hitherto been strong enough to overcome. But these sufferers are, at least, beginning to see these causes, and are becoming resolute to remove them, let it cost what it may. And those who imagine that they have nothing to do but to go on attributing the poverty of the poor to their vices, and preaching to them against their vices, will ere long wake up to find that the day for all such talk is past. And the question will then be, not what are men’s vices, but what are their rights?
Endnotes
1. To give an insane man a knife, or any other weapon, or thing, by which he is likely to injure himself, is a crime.
2. The statute book of Massachusetts makes ten years the age at which a female child is supposed to have discretion enough to part with her virtue. But the same statute book holds that no person, man or woman, of any age, or any degree of wisdom or experience, has discretion enough to be trusted to buy and drink a glass of spirits, on his or her own judgment! What an illustration of the legislative wisdom of Massachusetts!
3. Cato committed suicide to avoid falling into the hands of Cæsar. Who ever suspected that he was insane? Brutus did the same. Colt committed suicide only an hour or so before he was to be hanged. He did it to avoid bringing upon his name and his family the disgrace of having it said that he was hanged. This, whether a really wise act or not, was clearly an act within reasonable discretion. Does any one suppose that the person who furnished him with the necessary instrument was a criminal?
4. An illustration of this fact is found in England, whose government, for a thousand years and more, has been little or nothing else than a band of robbers, who have conspired to monopolize the land, and, as far as possible, all other wealth. These conspirators, calling themselves kings, nobles, and freeholders, have, by force and fraud, taken to themselves all civil and military power; they keep themselves in power solely by force and fraud, and the corrupt use of their wealth; and they employ their power solely in robbing and enslaving the great body of their own people, and in plundering and enslaving other peoples. And the world has been, and now is, full of examples substantially similar. And the governments of our own country do not differ so widely from others, in this respect, as some of us imagine.
5. It is to this incentive alone that we are indebted for all the wealth that has ever been created by human labor, and accumulated for the benefit of mankind.
6. Except those great crimes, which the few, calling themselves governments, practise upon the many, by means of organized, systematic extortion and tyranny. And it is only the poverty, ignorance, and consequent weakness of the many, that enable the combined and organized few to acquire and maintain such arbitrary power over them.
7. That is, from September 1, 1873, to March 1, 1875.
No. 1. Revolution: The Only Remedy for the Oppressed Classes of Ireland, England, and Other Parts of the British Empire
To the Man in Ireland, Whose Name is Believed to be Quinn, but Who Signs Himself “Dunraven.”
Sir,—
Your letter of Jan. 1, 1880, addressed to the Editor of the New York Herald, and published in the Herald of Jan. 7, deserves an answer, for the reason that it undoubtedly expresses not only your own sentiments, but also those of the class to which you belong. It virtually announces, and was evidently intended to announce, to the Irish people, both in Ireland and America, and to all other persons interested, that the landlords of Ireland,—backed, as you claim that they are, by the whole power of “the British Empire”—are determined to drive what you consider the surplus population of Ireland out of the country by starvation. You virtually say that all this feeding the starving Irish in their own country, is merely money and mercy thrown away; that as nothing but starvation will ever induce them to go, the sooner they are left to see that they have no other alternative, the better it will be for them, and for everybody else.
If you had, in so many words, threatened to drive them out by the bayonet, you could hardly have been more explicit. This makes it necessary that not only the Irish people, but that everybody else who feels any interest in such a matter, should inquire by what right you propose to do all this; and also whether you really have the physical power necessary to do it.
The following address to them, and this letter to yourself, are intended to show not only that you have neither the right, nor the power, to drive them out, but that they, and others similarly situuated, have both the right and the power to drive you, and all your abettors, out of both Ireland and England; and also, if need be, from off the face of the earth.
If you, and others like you, in England and Ireland, are prepared to meet this issue, we think that other men—men who believe that human beings have rights in this world, and that such a government as that of “the British Empire” has no rights at all—will, at no distant day, be ready, in sufficient numbers, to try conclusions with you.
The whole force of your letter, as a defence of Irish landlords, rests upon the assumption that they are the real and true owners of the lands they now hold. But this assumption is a false one. These lands, largely or mostly, were originally taken by the sword, and have ever since been held by the sword. Neither the original robbers, nor any subsequent holders, have ever had any other than a robber’s title to them. And robbery gives no better title to lands than it does to any other property.
No lapse of time can cure this defect in the original title. Every successive holder not only indorses all the robberies of all his predecessors, but he commits a new one himself by withholding the lands, either from the original and true owners, or from those who, but for those robberies, would have been their legitimate heirs and assigns.
And what is true of the lands in Ireland is equally true of the lands in England. The lands in England, largely or mostly, were originally taken by the sword, and have ever since been held by the sword; and the present holders have no better titles to them than simple, naked robbery has given them.
If the present holders, or any of their predecessors, in either Ireland or England, have ever purchased any of these lands, they have either purchased only a robber’s title to them, or they have purchased them only with the profits or proceeds of previous robberies. They have, therefore,