Sir Henry Fowler, who addressed his constituents at Wolverhampton on
Monday, energetically denied that there was any foundation for newspaper tales of conflicts in the Cabinet. He did not intend to disclose the nature of the Government's new Education Bill, but frankly avowed that be would be no party to the exclusion of the Bible from the elementary schools of this country. Touching on the rejection of Mr. Birrell's Irish Council Bill, bethought, "as an ignorant Englishman," that the Irishmen had committed one of the greatest blunders ever committed in the history of that country. Turning to Socialism, he declared that in so far as it was defined as the nationalisation of the means of production, sale, and exchange, he would oppose it to the utmost, and he recalled an interesting conversation with Mr. Gladstone on the nationalisation of the land. "The old gentleman in his quiet and stern way listened for a long time ; then he broke out suddenly with these words Do you mean to pay for it, or do you not ? If you mean to pay for it, it is folly ; if you don't mean to pay for it, it is robbery.'" We wish we had space to reprint the whole of Sir Henry's admirable denunciation of Socialism, fully reported in the Wolverhampton Express, but unhappily only very scantily given elsewhere. We should like to see this eloquent and evidently deeply felt condemnation of Socialism circulated throughout the country. It is inspired through- out with a burning sense of the injury which Socialistic measures must inflict on the working classes.
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