and wealth in the world, and because natural causes necessitate poverty in countries with an ever-increasing population, but because they are oppressed and robbed by the classes above them, or rather by the laws and institutions of their country, which protect the latter in the possession of their property.
The country has a right to call upon Mr Gladstone and his Cabinet either to let us know that these are their accepted doctrines, or boldly to disavow them. The matter is too serious, the crisis too grave, for dallying with principles which have wrought ruin to other nations, and which cannot be innocuous if permitted to prevail in Great Britain. Even though the result might be such a terrible disaster as the interruption of the concord and the imperilling of the unity of the Liberal party, there is a plain duty before those of Mr Gladstone's Government who are loyal to the Crown and Constitution of their country, and heavy indeed will be their responsibility if that duty be forgotten or evaded. The recent accession to the Cabinet of Mr Shaw-Lefevre (who in one of his last public speeches has boldly condemned the wild doctrines preached by Mr Chamberlain) and of Lord Rosebery (who is himself guilty to a large extent of the crime of "private-ownership" in land) may, by persons of a sanguine temperament, be hailed as a sign of the Prime Minister's disapproval of the extravagant utterances of his President of the Board of Trade. On the other hand, the presence of these men, and of others who are supposed to hold moderate views, in the same Cabinet with Mr Chamberlain, goes to show that his opinions are not considered by the Government to be as subversive of the British Constitution as they undoubtedly are, and in fact gives greater weight to his speeches. The country will not believe that the "Constitutional Liberals" in Mr Gladstone's Cabinet are sincere or trustworthy unless they now speak out. Let them at once repudiate the Communistic doctrines of their colleague; let them have the courage to show the world that the plunder of private owners is not the policy of the Liberal party, and the "natural rights" of man no part of its accepted creed: or if they have not the honesty and wisdom to take such a course, let them at least banish from their minds the delusion that they can be associated with the teachers of these pernicious theories without weakening their own influence for good, and practically lending the support of their character and position to doctrines which in their souls they abhor, and to men whom in their consciences they believe to be the worst enemies of the Crown and Constitution of Great Britain.
Printed by William Blackwood & Sons.
