ng. To some of the latter Sir Charles had been
insisting that, whether they kept the child or not, they could not
stifle the questions excited by his condition.

"You may delay, but you cannot dissipate them. We are filling up our
sessions with party struggles, theoretic discussions, squabbles about
foreign politics, debates on political machinery, while year by year the
condition of the people is becoming more invidious and full of peril.
Social and political reform ought to be linked; the people on whom
you confer new political rights cannot enjoy them without health and
well-being."

"But all our legislation is directed to that!" exclaimed Mr. Joshua
Hale. "Reform, Free Trade, Free Corn--have these not enhanced the wealth
of the people?"

"Partially; yet there are classes unregenerated by their reviving
influences. Free trade cannot insure work, nor can free corn provide
food for every citizen."

"Nor any other legislation: let us be practical. I own there is much to
be done. I have often stated my 'platform.' We must clip the enormous
expenditure on soldiers and ships; reduce our overweening army of
diplomatic spies and busybodies; abstain from meddling in everybody's
quarrels; redeem from taxation the workman's necessaries--a free
breakfast-table; peremptorily legislate against the custom of
primogeniture; encourage the distribution and transfer of land; and,
under the aegis of the ballot, protect from the tyranny of the landlord
and employer their tenants and workmen."

"Very good, perhaps, all of them," replied Sir Charles, "but some not at
the moment possible, and all together are not exhaustive. Why do you
not go to the bottom of social needs? You say nothing about Health
legislation--are you indifferent to the sanitary condition of the
people? You have not hinted at Education--Waste Lands--Emigration--"

"Oh! I am opposed to that altogether."

"I forgot, you are a manufacturer; yet the last man of whom I should
believe that selfishness had warped the judgment. You have done and
endured more than any living statesman for the advantage of your
fellow-citizens, so that I will not cast at you the aspersion of
class-blindness. Still, I can scarcely think you have looked at this
matter in the pure light of patriotism, and not within the narrow scope
of trade interests."

"Quite unjust. Our best economists reprehend the policy of depleting our
labor-market. Emigration is a timely remedy for adversity and to