WCP2671

[1]¹

Anchorite’s Well,

Kendall,

Westmoreland.

April 20. 1889 and April 23^rd [18]’89

My dear Sir

I am greatly encouraged by the receipt of your letter. Can we work together so as to bring about the first colony²? We make slow progress because we have so few friends who are able to speak in public and who have the right kind of faith in the effort.

It has always seemed to me that the success of the enter- [2] -prise would bring about the nationalization of land and there are some features about this — as one method amongst others — peculiarly attractive to me: it is an attempt not only to nationalize the land but also to re-arrange the conditions under which the people shall be employed there. An experiment in nationalization of a certain tract of land — if it were only such as Feargus O’Connor³ tried but with land owning instead of land-renting — would fail, so [3]⁴ far as I can understand at present because of low prices which prevail & which will continue to prevail[,] until the dawn of a new system under which low prices will not impoverish the labourer.

Another feature which you will readily understand is that our attempt is to begin by becoming owners of the cheapest land (which is sometimes the most fertile in England) and owning it on behalf of the poorest people. It seems to me that the first advantages sh[oul]d be reaped by these able-bodied unemployed because they are the chief sufferers from the system under which we now live.

Will you allow me to add your name to a list of friends who have consented to attend our first Annual Meeting⁵ in the Mansion House⁶ at 3. o’clock on May 16th when the Lord Mayor⁷ will preside? Mr Jacob Bright⁸ will be there, and some other Members of Parliament who are friendly. We are obliged to carry on our work judiciously. If we look for the means of starting a colony amongst the avowed friends of Socialism [4]⁹ we cannot possibly raise the money we need ^{so as} to be independent of commerce on the other hand ^and if we put the socialistic aspects of the experiment into the very front of our advocacy we shall offend so many who might have helped, amongst those who desire to help the poor but who have an unreasonable fear of socialism.

If ever you come to the North I shall be very proud to receive you here and talk over the work which is waiting to be done. I am not by any means sure that I am the [5] best man to undertake the task. My Unitarianism has driven off many friends who possibl[y] would have helped, had it not been for religious prejudice. Still I am eager to do any thing I am able to do, and I [2 words illeg. struck through] believe the social question is much more in need of trusty workers than any religious question — if indeed they be not identical.

Let me hear from you again & particularly in respect to [sic] the Mansion House Meeting, which you could help us to vivify[.]

Yours v[er]y truly | Herbert Mills¹⁰ [signature]