We wish we could reply that it does not matter
what the Daily News says, but, unfortunately, the time for such a reply has gone by. The words we have quoted. represent the influences which are now dominant in, not only the Liberal Party, but the Liberal Government. And yet a party with such a programme calls itself a Free-trade party, and issues an edition of Bastiat under the patronage of its chief ! When the Daily News says it sees no end to the charges on the national purse which will flow from its policy of social reform, we are inclined to echo its words with a piece of dialogue from one of the Elizabethan dramatists :—
"Is this the end, Sir?
Oh no, there is no end. The end is death and madness !"
Is the Liberal Party entirely bereft of its reason? Do not its members see that the piling up of mountains of expendi- ture must play the game of the Tariff Reformers, and must also depress to poverty and political dependence huge sections of the working classes P An overtaxed State is often the' paradise of the bad type of capitalist. It puts the weak at his mercy. It is the hell of the honest worker.
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