e will be taken than
needful. Parks and woods are becoming of priceless value; we should
have to preserve a few landlords if only to have parks and woods.
Perfect rights of possession are not at all incompatible with
enjoyment by the people. There are domains to be found where people
wander at their will, and enjoy themselves as much as they please,
and yet the owner retains every right. It is true that there are
also numerous parks rigidly closed to the public, demonstrating the
folly of the proprietors--square miles of folly. The use of a little
compulsion to open them would not be at all deplorable. But it must
stop there and not encroach farther. Having obtained the use, be
careful not to destroy.

The one great aim I have in all my thoughts is the acquisition of
public and the preservation of private liberty. Freedom is the most
valuable of all things, and is to be sought with all our powers of
mind and hand. Freedom does not mean injustice, but neither will it
put up with injustice. A singular misapprehension seems to be widely
spread in our time; it is that there are two great criminals, the
poor man or 'pauper' and the landlord. At opposite extremes of the
scale they are regarded as equally guilty. Every right--the right to
vote, the right to live in his native village, the right to be
buried decently--is taken from the unhappy poor man or 'pauper.' He
is a criminal. To own land is to be guilty of unpardonable sin,
nothing is so bad; as criminals are ordered to be searched and
everything taken from them, so everything is to be taken from the
landowner. The injustice to both is equally evident. Anyone by
chance of circumstances, uncontrollable, may be reduced to extreme
poverty; how cruel to punish the unfortunate with the loss of civil
rights! Anyone by good fortune and labour may acquire wealth, and
would naturally wish to purchase land: is he then guilty? In equity
both the poor and the rich should enjoy the same civil rights.

Let the new voter then bear in mind above all things the value of
individual liberty, and not be too anxious to destroy the liberty of
others, an action that invariably recoils. Let him, having obtained
his freedom, beware how he surrenders it again either to local
influence in the shape of land or money, or to the outside orator
who may urge him on for his own ends. Efforts will be made no doubt
to use the new voter for the purposes of cliques and fanatics. He
can always test the va