and 1886, with large, far-reaching plans of Liberal
and democratic reform, of a generous policy to Ireland, of
retrenchment and reduction of expenditure upon naval and military
armaments--all promises to the people, and for the sake of which he
resigned rather than play them false. Then you have the elections of
1892 and 1895. In each the Conservative Party, whether in office or
opposition, was, under the powerful influence of Mr. Chamberlain,
committed to most extensive social programmes, of what we should call
Liberal and Radical reforms, like the Workmen's Compensation Act and
Old-Age Pensions, part of which were carried out by them and part by
others.

But what social legislation, what plans of reform do the Conservative
Party offer now to the working people of England if they will return
them to power? I have studied very carefully the speeches of their
leaders--if you can call them leaders--and I have failed to discover a
single plan of social reform or reconstruction. Upon the grim and
sombre problems of the Poor Law they have no policy whatever. Upon
unemployment no policy whatever; for the evils of intemperance no
policy whatever, except to make sure of the public-house vote; upon
the question of the land, monopolised as it is in the hands of so
few, denied to so many, no policy whatever; for the distresses of
Ireland, for the relations between the Irish and British peoples, no
policy whatever unless it be coercion. In other directions where they
have a policy, it is worse than no policy. For Scotland the Lords'
veto, for Wales a Church repugnant to the conscience of the
overwhelming majority of the Welsh people, crammed down their throats
at their own expense.

Yet we are told they are confident of victory, they are persuaded that
the country has already forgotten the follies and even the crimes of
the late Administration, and that the general contempt and disgust in
which they were dismissed from power has already passed away. They are
already busy making their Cabinet, who is to be put in and, what is
not less important, who is to be put out. Lists of selection and lists
of proscription are being framed. The two factions into which they are
divided, the Balfourites and the tariff reformers, are each acutely
conscious of one another's infirmities, and, through their respective
organs, they have succeeded in proving to their apparent satisfaction
what most of us have known, and some of us have said for a lo