WUAT ONLOOKERS THINK OF FREE-TRADE 47 



by place-hunting and time-serving political hucksters, whose 

 everyday acts proclaim them to be degenerate sons of a great 

 nation. 



Independent Opinion 



These and many other incongruities which mark the course 

 of national affairs lead this vast body of independent men, who 

 have hitherto taken no part in the business of the country — 

 save to vote for the party to which they incline, and pay their 

 rates and taxes — to conclude that tliere is so much that is wrong 

 in the administration of public matters as to demand searching 

 inquiry and drastic changes. 



The present conditions of widespread and ever-increasing 

 unemployment, prevalent destitution, the need of enormous 

 State and private charities — among many other evidences of 

 national failure — offer direct proof that whatever else the 

 present fiscal system may have done for the country, it has 

 not prevented these misfortunes befalling the people ; and it 

 may, therefoi-e, be safely asserted that, if after sixty years, this 

 system of working our fiscal arrangements so signally fails, it 

 is not a good, practical, up-to-date and everyday system. It 

 may be an excellent system for merchants, shippers, bankers, 

 manufacturers, and many others who individiiallrj profit by it, 

 but the evidences of poverty, distress, unemployment, and that 

 political unrest which is always born of a people's degradation, 

 and never of their elevation, prove that it has operated to the 

 utter undoing of the masses. 



Paeliamentary Windbags 



Then, they are wholly dissatisfied and alarmed by that 

 wordy warfare which is for ever raging round every national 

 question which comes up before Parliament, resulting in nothing 

 but copia verhorum. Session after session passes by, and yet the 

 country is not the richer in wise statutes, nor the people bene- 

 fited by remedial legislation. Each political party plays that 

 game which best serves its own interests. 



The Tories don't want drastic Land Reform, because it would 

 interfere with their interests, while the Radicals want it but are 

 afraid to act up to their convictions for fear of offending the 

 " aristocracy " of their own party, as also for other reasons. 

 The Labour Party want everything to come their way, and theii- 

 entire policy is characterised by pre-eminent selfishness. Labour 

 must be free, dominant, supreme, and every interest must be 

 subordinated to that end. Socialists and Irish Nationalists ai-e 



