We hardly remember to have ever read a statement made by a responsible Minister of the Crown so mischievous in spirit, so suggestive of inferences which are absolutely untrue, and so reckless in its misrepresentation of history and facts. Mr Chamberlain may seek for "Liberalism" what support he pleases, but it is a shameless perversion of truth to insinuate that either "Liberalism" or "Conservatism" has failed to recognise "the right of the poor to live, and their right to a fair chance of enjoying life." This is not a fair attempt to obtain political support for a party, but an obvious insinuation that the newly enfranchised class have hitherto been wronged and oppressed by the classes above them – an insinuation having a direct tendency to provoke and justify a war of classes. The insinuation is as unworthy as it is baseless. There has been no such want of recognition either among politicians of any party or among the owners of private property, against whom the President of the Board of Trade has started his crusade. To use his own phrase, "every man who is born into the world" has the right to live; and we freely concede that he has something more – namely, the right to the protection of the laws, and the enjoyment of all the advantages of the constitution of the country in which he happens to be born. It is something more that the Socialist demands – namely, a "natural right," which would set at nought those laws and violate that constitution; and this is a right which cannot be allowed without the destruction of that order and civilisation which are essential to the prosperity, nay, to the very existence; of the nation.
But what does Mr Chamberlain mean by his next words? Does he mean to say that "in the earlier stages of society" – i.e., in semi-barbarous times – the poor had any rights which are not now as fully recognised as then? Of course, with a much smaller population, the evils of overcrowding had not arisen, and the woes and misfortunes of the poor were of a different character. Does Mr Chamberlain really pine after those days, and believe that "land being held in common" implies a better and happier life than is now possible for the poor? We venture to say that these vague, general statements as to supposed halcyon days are founded upon no historical knowledge, and that it would puzzle the orator to define the particular epoch to which he refers, or any epoch at all in which the advantages which he depicts as having been within the reach of the poor were not grievously counterbalanced by considerations which he shuts out of sight and altogether ignores.
But the last sentence which we have quoted is that in which audacity of misrepresentation culminates to its highest point. What does any man mean by telling his countrymen that their "birthright has been bartered away for a mess of pottage, and has become the possession of private owners of property"? This is a deliberate and wholly unjustifiable charge against the owners of property of having robbed the public. The process which Mr Chamberlain describes as one by which "the birthright" of the English people has been bartered, is, in plain English, nothing more nor less than the progress of civilisation, which has gradually converted vast tracts of land from the barren and unprofitable condition in which they would otherwise have been left if "held in common," has developed the resources
