i82 LAND REFORM 



political power to those who are pensioners of the 

 State." ^ 



Fortunately, however, common sense and justice 

 prevailed. The clause was carried by a large majority, 

 and the Bill became law tovv^ards the end of the 

 session, and the labourers were enabled to vote in 

 the general election which took place in November of 

 the same year (1885). 



In the following year, however, an event occurred 

 which, though it bore no immediate fruit, yet doubt- 

 less had subsequently a great effect on the question 

 under consideration. On 26 January, 1886, at the 

 opening of the session, an Amendment to the 

 Address was moved in favour of allotments and small 

 holdings. This Amendment was carried and the 

 Government defeated. But though a Liberal Ministry 

 came into office on this question, though it came into 

 power on the backs of the labourers, so to speak, no 

 attempt whatever was made to deal with it. The 

 question was set aside and entirely ignored in order 

 to deal with the question of Home Rule for Ireland. 

 It would be difficult to find in all political history a 



^ The doctrines of these pedants, now happily " banished to Saturn," 

 are aptly described by a distinguished novelist and poet in the following 

 passages : — 



"Rev. Dr. Folliott : But pray, sir, what is political economy? 



" MacQuedy : Political economy is to the State what domestic 

 economy is to the family. 



" Rev. Dr. Folliott : No such thing, sir. In the family there is a 

 paterfamilias who regulates the distribution, and takes care that there 

 be no such thing in the household as one dying of hunger, while another 

 dies of surfeit. In the State it is all hunger at one end and all surfeit at 

 the other. . . . There are two great classes of men : those who produce 

 much and consume little ; and those who consume much and produce 

 nothing ... to take as much as I can get, and pay no more than I can 

 help. . . . There, sir, is political economy in a nutshell." 



" Crochet Castle," by Thomas Love Peacock. 



