The Conference on rural reforms called by the Radical managers
ended on Friday week with a speech from Mr. Gladstone. It was long, chatty, and rather discursive ; but it was received with enthusiasm, the delegates gathering from it that the speaker was on the side of the labourers. Mr. Gladstone, however, abused neither squire nor parson, and told farmers that their interests were as dear to him as those of his immediate audience. Mr. Gladstone said be was in favour of reducing election expenses, in the interest of labour; of dividing the rates between landlord and occupier ; of abolishing or restricting the law of conspiracy, so that nothing legal in an individual should be illegal in a combination ; of establishing Parish Councils, with the control of charities, by-roads, footpaths, and rights-of-way ; of compulsory ex- propriation for allotments and small holdings ; and also of compelling landlords to lease lands for such purposes ; —the last a new idea which we have discussed elsewhere. Mr. Gladstone noted with pride, that in 1832 he had in Newark said that the labourers ought to be brought closer to the land, though he admitted that he had done little to forward that policy, and finished with a peroration hoping that the rural population might sit down "under the shadow of beneficent legislation," and "live and die in contentment and in peace." The " shadow " of beneficent legislation is surely rather an Italian than an English figure of speech. We talk of the cold shade with something of a shiver, but Mr. Gladstone possibly took his thought from Isaiah.
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