CAPITAL AND LABOUR. 553 



hostile kind as prevails in countries where the heritage of 

 wrong in the past has justified the reproaches of the present. 

 JEven the phrases used in the old country to arouse in labour 

 a fierce vindictiveness are imported here to justify or excuse 

 a feeling of hostility that is almost ludicrously disproportioned 

 to the cause. 



In New South Wales the labour party has held for some 

 months the balance of power in the House of Assembly, 

 with perfect indifference to large questions of State policy, and 

 with but one idea — to obtain legislation in their own favour. 

 Already they have turned a Ministry out of office, and are 

 helping to reverse the deliberate fiscal policy of the Colony — 

 blind, deaf, dumb to all considerations but the advancement 

 of trades unionism and the despotism of labour ; and even 

 their own disintegration and downfall in the general wreck 

 do not seem to have taught them anything. 



Whatever of hopefulness there is in the outlook for the 

 future will lie in the fuller education of the people to a 

 perception of their real wants, and a realisation that neither 

 from their own side nor from their opponents, will they 

 obtain redress for evils that are entirely of their own causing, 

 and that can only be removed by a change in their own dis- 

 positions. Not in individual revolution, but in re-adjustment, 

 must be the way towards a happier state of things ; and, as 

 Mr. Gladstone lately said, " Capital, and not labour, has 

 hitherto had the upper hand : it is time that the balance 

 should not be reversed, but redressed." 



" Ah, tho' the times, when some new thought can bud, 



Are but as poets' seasons when they flower, 



Yet seas, that daily gain upon the shore. 



Have ebb and flow conditioning their march, 



And slow and sure comes up the golden year. 



When wealth no more shall rest in moulded lieai^s. 



But smit with freer light shall slowly melt 



In many streams to fatten lower Jands, 



And light shall spread, and man be liker man 



Thro' all the seasons of the golden year." 



