As an economical speech, Lord Randolph's was almost as original
as it was in its political imputations. "Your iron in- dustry is dead, dead as mutton ; your coal industries, which depend greatly on the iron industries, are languishing ; your silk industry is dead, assassinated by the foreigner ; your woollen industry is in articulo mortis, gasping, struggling ; your cotton industry is seriously sick ; your shipbuilding industry, which held out longest, is come to a stand.still What has produced this state of things ? Free imports ? I am not sure; I should like an inquiry ; but I suspect free imports of the murder of our industries, much in the same way as if I found a man standing over a corpse and plunging a knife into it, I should suspect that man of homicide, and should recom- mend a coroner's inquest and a trial by jury." If Lord Ran- dolph believes all that, he is as ignorant as he is arrogant. He cannot remember, of course, the years before Free-trade; but he might read about them, and compare the state of the working- classes now and their state then. However, it is useless arguing with a master of the art of saying what one does not mean.
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