the impetuosity of Radicalism, but they have at the same time led those who could and would effectually have opposed it to a point at which their opposition will be too late. These men – many of whom have condemned in their hearts and disapproved in their private conversations the measures which they have reluctantly supported by their votes – these men have much to answer for to their country. They may, however, be regarded with pity; for whilst they are gradually losing, if they have not already lost, the confidence of those who trusted them to resist extreme and violent measures, they are laughed to scorn by their Radical colleagues, and will be cast aside as soon as it suits the purpose of the latter to do so.
What are these speeches of Mr Chamberlain's but a bid for the leadership of that Radical faction which will soon absorb the so-called Liberal party? They are something more indeed. They are, if not intended, at least eminently calculated, to excite a war of classes, – the poor against the rich, – and to bring upon this country all the misery and ruin which a similar war brought upon France at the close of the last century. As if he had not been sufficiently explicit in his previous speeches, what does Mr Chamberlain say upon the 29th January, again addressing his Birmingham constituents? Imputing to Sir Stafford Northcote a desire (which we need hardly say had never been expressed by him) to prevent the labourers and artisans from improving their condition, Mr Chamberlain sneeringly continues: "The working classes in this country are to continue in the future as they have in the past – to order themselves lowly and reverently to all their betters, and to do their duty in the state of life to which it shall please God to call them. I think that is a rich man's gospel, and a barren programme." What is the meaning of these words? Evidently, from their context, not that the "working classes" are to do their duty as God-fearing citizens, and strive, as every good Conservative would have them strive, to better their position under the fair conditions which our free constitution affords, and by the practice of such thrift and providence as have hitherto raised many of their class in the social scale. No; it is something else which Mr Chamberlain dangles before their eyes: something to be obtained by means of the vote which has just been given them; something to be wrested from other classes against whom they are excited by the whole tone and tenor of those inflammatory speeches. And for all that may follow as the result of this teaching, the whole of the present Government, and beyond all men Mr Gladstone himself, must be held directly responsible to the country. These are not matters which should be left "open questions" in any Cabinet. Mr Chamberlain has boldly and loudly declared himself the advocate of free, that is State paid, education for the working classes, of paid members of Parliament, the remission of all indirect taxation, a system of graduated taxation, and the forcible taking of land from those who are legally entitled to it, for the purpose of dealing with it upon communistic principles. In order to justify the latter proposal, he roundly accuses "some people" (a sufficiently wide term) of confiscation, plunder, and robbery; and endeavours to show the poor that they are poor, not because it is the ordering of Providence that there should be inequalities of rank
