No member of the Ministry is attacked like Mr. Childers,
because no member has had so many reductions to make among men who can scream when the knife touches them. Every useless clerk dismissed writes to the papers to say he is robbed, and the dockyard men actually assaulted the Member for Gravesend, Sir C. Wingfield, with squibs, because he upheld reductions. Mr. Childers has accordingly published a letter, in which he shows conclusively that the late Government discharged 3,948 hired men, and pen- sioned 411 established men. The present Government has pensioned 617 established men, aided 666 to emigrate, and given gratuities to 117. Consequently, the late Government dismissed four times as many men, fifty times as unkindly. But then a Tory govern- ment can always dismiss, because Liberals approve economy, while Liberals cannot, because Tories approve extravagance. The Standard is quite capable, after this explanation, of telling the Gravesend men that Mr. Childers is their enemy.
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