COBDENISM. 57 



(for leant vf trade), and tJnis the checsc-maJcing industry 

 has gone dtncn hill, year after year. 



(37). " Ou tlie last occasion on wliicli I spoke 

 in this HoiisG, I was answered by tlie riglit 

 honourable gentleman, Mr. W. E. Gladstone, 

 President of the Board of Trade; and tbat right 

 honourable j^entleman talked of us free traders 

 throwing poor land out of cultivation and throw-, 

 ing other land out of tillage into pasture." ] 



Note. — Mr. Gladstone leas right, and Mr. Cohden was- 

 wrong. Consult the staiistics. 



(38). " The landlords have absolute power in 

 the country; there is no doubt about it." 



NoTii. — Sueh leas the ease; but, to-day, the landlords 

 have not that power, and therefore, nobody xcho attempts 

 ■to deal with fiseal reform icould be so mad as to bring 

 ill a reform mainly for the benefit of landowners. The 

 fact is, Mr. Chamberlain^s j^roposals are a worhing-mans 

 question, as he himself has said, and if adopted they 

 u-ill result in increased work for worJcing-men, besides 

 drawing the Colonies and the Mother Country nnirh, 

 closer together, ichich wc, of eourse, ardently desire to 

 do. 



(39). " The last Census shows that you cannot 

 employ the labourers in the agricultural districts. 

 There are too many of them, it is said." 



Note. — Precisely. There xcas over-popidation in the 

 rural districts, and, consequently, where there were two 

 or three men after one job, wages would necessarily go 

 down. They did go down, therefore, in Cobden's time. 



(40). " "VVe all know that the Allotments sys- 

 tem has been taken up. It is a plaything. It is 

 a failure." 



Note. — If Mr. Cobdcn had spent half the energy in 

 putting people on to the land that he spent in opening 



