238 imiTAIN FOR THE BRITON 



citizens to obtain, and which we, the people, will and must 

 have before this country can emerge from that gloomy region 

 of poverty and general unprosperity which, alas ! enshrouds 

 too many of our unfortunate countrymen to-day ? " 



" What man can point to this law or that and honestly say, 

 from his heart, that here is a measure conceived by wise and 

 far-seeing statesmen : a measure born of a parliament of loyal 

 patrioticlegislators, and put into operation by that body for 

 the good, and in the interests of the people ? " 



" Shall it not, on the contrary, be said that practically all 

 the laws in the Statute Book for years past illustrate rather 

 the hopelessness and impracticability of our legislative system 

 than vindicate its usefulness ? " 



Ugly Questions eequiring Answers 



These are ugly questions, but they must be answered sooner 

 or later. 



That the national legislative body is, for the above reasons, 

 among others, an incompetent body, and utterly incapable, under 

 existing conditions, of giving to the country a code of simple 

 laws whereunder the people would have an equal chance with 

 the peoples of other States of making the most of all their 

 trades and industries, is perfectly obvious to every man who, 

 unbiassed by political influence and untainted by party corrup- 

 tion, takes the trouble to think this matter out for himself. 



If it were not so, if these Acts had been framed on the 

 broad principles of public equity and utility, is it possible that 

 there would be with us to-day that foul and ever-growing mass 

 of pauperism which is the hete noir of the Exchequer, and 

 the despair of statesmen, forming the most grievous and yet 

 unnecessary burden to the rate-payers of this country, the like 

 of which finds no parallel in the world's history ? 



If these Acts had been of a national nature, meeting the 

 needs of the people without sacrificing the interests of the 

 tax-payers; had they been of a kind that, while conserving 

 Home interests, would not necessarily militate against Imperial 

 unity: would the unemployed now be tramping the country 

 seeking work and finding it not, or would discontent and 

 political unrest dog the footsteps of Government with the 

 pertinacity of a sleuth-hound ? 



Had the people's representatives at Westminster taken 

 warning by the signs of the times, and had they framed their 

 legislative measures during the last twenty years so as to have 

 met, wholly or in part, those proper claims of the people to 

 certain well-understood and wholly necessary reforms, is it at 



