Alfred Russel Wallace: Letters and Reminiscences, Vol. 2 eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 332 pages of information about Alfred Russel Wallace.

Alfred Russel Wallace: Letters and Reminiscences, Vol. 2 eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 332 pages of information about Alfred Russel Wallace.

ALFRED R. WALLACE,

* * * * *

TO MR. A. WILTSHIRE[53]

Broadstone, Wimborne.  October 10, 1907.

Dear Sir,—­I told Mr. Button that I do not approve of the resolution you are going to move.[54]

The workers of England have themselves returned a large majority of ordinary Liberals, including hundreds of capitalists, landowners, manufacturers, and lawyers, with only a sprinkling of Radicals and Socialists.  The Government—­your own elected Government—­is doing more for the workers than any Liberal Government ever did before, yet you are going to pass what is practically a vote of censure on it for not being a Radical, Labour, and Socialist Government!

If this Government attempted to do what you and I think ought to be done, it would lose half its followers and be turned out, ignominiously, giving the Tories another chance.  That is foolish as well as unfair.—­Yours truly,

ALFRED R. WALLACE.

* * * * *

TO LORD AVEBURY

Broadstone, Wimborne.  June 23, 1908.

Dear Lord Avebury,—­ ...  Allow me to wish every success to your Bill for preserving beautiful birds from destruction.  To stop the import is the only way—­short of the still more drastic method of heavily fining everyone who wears feathers in public, with imprisonment for a second offence.  But we are not yet ripe for that.—­Yours very truly,

ALFRED R. WALLACE.  TO MR. E. SMEDLEY

Old Orchard, Broadstone, Dorset.  December 25, 1910.

Dear Mr. Smedley,—­Thanks for your long and interesting letter....  Man is, and has been, horribly cruel, and it is indeed difficult to explain why.  Yet that there is an explanation, and that it does lead to good in the end, I believe.  Praying is evidently useless, and should be, as it is almost always selfish—­for our benefit, or our families, or our nation.—­Yours very truly,

ALFRED E. WALLACE.

* * * * *

TO MR. W.G.  WALLACE

Old Orchard, Broadstone, Wimborne.  August 20, 1911.

My dear Will,—­ ...  The railway strike surpasses the Parliament Bill in excitement.  On receipt of Friday’s paper, I sat down and composed and sent off to Lloyd George a short but big letter, on large foolscap paper, urging him and Asquith, as the two strong men of the Government, to take over at once the management of the railways of the entire country, by Royal Proclamation—­on the ground of mismanagement for seventy years, and having brought the country to the verge of starvation and civil war; to grant an amnesty to all strikers (except for acts of violence), also grant all the men’s demands for one year, and devote that

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Alfred Russel Wallace: Letters and Reminiscences, Vol. 2 from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.