If Mr. Gladstone, said Mr. Goschen, were to win at
the polls, and the ..lonatituencies were to reverse the judgment of 1886, the result would be that the British Government would rank among the most unstable of Governments for the future, and that that would happen in England which is now happening in France,— namely, confidence would desert her, as it is now deserting France for Germany, in consequence of the much greater stability of the German Government. Political instability means a much greater loss to the masses than to the classes, less work, lower wages,—in short, less energy and activity of all kinds. Mr. Goschen is quite right. What an industrial population need first of all is full reliance on their own energies and on the economic, laws without respect to which even their inherent energy is paralysed. A people who believe that legislation can always save them from misfortune by the sleight-of-hand of State intervention, will never know what thrift really means, for they will be utterly demoralised by learning to lean on the resources accumulated in the shallow cisterns of the taxable wealth of the capitalist class.
Previous page
