TARIFF REFORM AND irS EFFECTS. 91 



have been passed by Mr. Gladstone and the 

 Liberal Party of that period. They refused to 

 pass this Allotments Act, although Mr. Cham- 

 berlain and Mr. Jesse CoUings had advocated 

 throughout the country this and other rural 

 reforms. Mr. Gladstone took advantage of 

 the position. The advantage he took was 

 to get into power over the labourers' backs, and 

 then, without ceremony, to throw them over for 

 Home Eule. If that abominable treatment of 

 poor men stood alone, one might possibly forgive 

 the Liberal Party; but the same politicians went 

 again for Home Hule in 1892 instead of for the 

 various social reforms required by the agricultural 

 labouring and farming community. 



It is not a matter for wonder that Mr. Cham- 

 berlain and others refused to trust the interests 

 of the agricultural labourer to Lord Eosebery, 

 Sir H. Campbell-Bannerman, and their Home 

 Rule friends ; and we are able to state that since 

 the great " split " took place on the first Home 

 Pule Bill, the rural population has secured more 

 reforms and better reforms than have been 

 secured in any similar period of our history. 



It would take too long to mention the many 

 magnificent Acts of Parliament of special 

 interest to rural people which we have se- 

 cured from the combined Unionist Party; but 

 there are two Allotment xicts Vv^hich, for the first 

 time, enable any labouring man to apply for an 

 acre of land, and give him compulsory powers 

 by which he can obtain it; there is a Small 

 Holdings Act, which, for the first time, enables 



