1. Home colonization, or the cultivation of waste lands by the poor.
2. Orderlyism, or the employment of the poor in the promotion of public cleanliness, and the increased sanitary condition of the country.
K. The prevention of the enclosure of commons; as the means of enabling the poor to obtain gratuitous pasturage for their cattle.
L. The abolition of primogeniture; with the view of dividing the land among a greater number of individuals.
M. The holding of the land by the State, and equal apportionment of it among the poor.
N. Extension of the suffrage among the people; and so allowing the workman, as well as the capitalist and the landlord, to take part in the formation of the laws of the country. For this purpose there are two plans:—
1. “The freehold-land movement,” which seeks to enable the people to become proprietors of as much land as will, under the present law, give them “a voice” in the country.
2. Chartism, or that which seeks to alter the law concerning the election of members of Parliament, and to confer the right of voting on every male of mature age, sound mind, and non-criminal character.
O. Cultivation of a higher moral and Christian character among the people. This form of remedy, which is advocated by many, is based on the argument, that, without some mitigation of the “selfishness of the times,” all other schemes for improving the condition of the people will be either evaded by the cunning of the rich, or defeated by the servility of the poor.
The above I believe to be a full and fair statement of the several plans that have been proposed, from time to time, for alleviating the distress of the people. This enumeration is as comprehensive as my knowledge will enable me to make it; and I have abstained from all comment on the several schemes, so that the reader may have an opportunity of impartially weighing the merits of each, and adopting that, which in his own mind, seems best calculated to effect what, after all, we every one desire—whether protectionist, economist, free-trader, philanthropist, socialist, communist, or chartist—the good of the country in which we live, and the people by whom we are surrounded.