When speaking at the celebration of Sir Harry Verney's political
jubilee last Tuesday, Mr. Mundella made a remarkable .speech on the national progress which had been due to Liberal legislation. He pointed out that in 1833 the poor-rate had amounted to £8,600,000, 63 per cent. of which than fell upon the land (for there were real agricultural burdens then) ; whereas now, with very nearly twice the population, we spend absolutely less on the relief of the poor than we did at that time. "For the first thirty- five years of this century, crime increased at a threefold greater ratio than the population, until the people were being drawn so rapidly into this dreadful gulf of pauperism and crime, that one could only wonder, and be thankful that we had escaped some great national convulsion, and that England stood firm and loyal during such a period of discontent and distress." Mr. Mundella declared that it was Liberal legislation which had changed all that. Well, no doubt the new Poor-law did much, but Free-trade, which was due to Mr. Cobden, Mr. Bright, and Sir Robert Peel, did more, and can hardly be called a Liberal measure. It was a measure for which Radical knight-errants had prepared the people, but one passed by a Conservative minister.
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