The Digger Movement in the Days of the Commonwealth: As Revealed in the Writings of Gerrard Winstanley, the Digger, Mystic and Rationalist, Communist and Social ReformerBerens, Lewis Henry
History
The Digger Movement in the Days of the Commonwealth: As Revealed in the Writings of Gerrard Winstanley, the Digger, Mystic and Rationalist, Communist and Social Reformer
Berens, Lewis Henry
Communism; Land use; Winstanley, Gerrard, 1609-
"_Secondly_, In Parishes where Commons lie, the rich Norman
Free-holders, or the new (more covetous) Gentry, overstock the
Commons with sheep and cattle, so that the inferior Tenants and
poor Labourers can hardly keep a cow, but half starve her. So that
the poor are kept poor still, and the Common Freedom of the Earth
is kept from them, and the poor have no more relief than they had
when the King (or Conqueror) was in power....
"Now saith the whisperings of the People, the inferior Tenants and
Laborers bear all the burthens, in laboring the Earth, in paying
Taxes and Free-quarter above their strength, and in furnishing the
Armies with soldiers, who bear the greatest burden of the War; and
yet the Gentry, who oppress them and live idle upon their labors,
carry away all the comfortable livelihood of the Earth.
"For is not this a common speech among the People, We have parted
with our estates, we have lost our friends in the wars, which we
willingly gave up because Freedom was promised us; and now in the
end we have new Task-masters, and our old burthens are increased.
And though all sorts of people have taken an engagement to cast out
Kingly Power, yet Kingly Power remains in power still in the hands
of those who have no more right to the Earth than ourselves.
"For say the people, If the Lords of Manors and our Task-masters
hold Title to the Earth over us from the old Kingly Power, behold
that power is broken and cast out. And two Acts of Parliament have
been made. The one to cast out Kingly Power, backed by the
Engagement against King and the House of Lords. The other to make
England a Free Commonwealth."
He then still further supports his fundamental contention in the
following unanswerable manner:
"If Lords of Manors lay claim to the Earth over us from the Army's
Victories over the King; then we have as much right to the Land as
they, because our labors and blood and death of friends, were the
purchasers of the Earth's Freedom as well as theirs. And is not
this a slavery, say the people, that though there be land enough in
England to maintain ten times as many people as are in it, yet some
must beg of their bretheren, or work in hard drudgery for day wages
for them, or starve, or steal, and so be hanged out of the way, as
men not fit to live on the Earth? Before they are suffered to plant
the waste land for a livelihood, they must pay rent to their
bretheren for it. Well, this is a burthen the Creation groans
under; and the subjects (so-called) have not their birth-right
freedom granted them from their bretheren, who hold it from them by
Club-Law, but not by Righteousness."
WHAT IS TO RULE?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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