Page:The life and times of King Edward VII by Whates, Harry Richard 5.djvu/23

 THE PARLIAMENTARY OUTLOOK doctrine that labour is a thing to be bought and sold as inanimate commodities are bought and sold. The outcome of that internal convulsion was the temporary destruction of the Unionist Party. It clung to office for two years after the split. When at length it sought its fate at the General Election early in 1906, the electorate almost anni- hilated it. In domestic affairs, as in foreign relations, a new era had opened. King Edward found himself with new Ministers, animated by a new spirit. What a stupendous change that election effected, and the historic consequences that flowed from it were flowing in a mighty flood when King Edward breathed his last will be told here- after. Our present business is with the causes of the change. The public had expected an im- mense revival of trade with the establishment of peace. There was to be a " boom " in South Africa such as the world had never known. The Rand was a mass of gold. To multi- ply the output all that was needed was to dig deeper. Elsewhere on the veld there were auriferous and dia- mondiferous areas where new Johannes- burgs and new Kimberleys would arise in a night. Great populations would flock there. The resources of the existing railways would be overtaxed to carry inward the new machinery, the supplies, the influx of immigrants and to carry outward the mammoth nuggets and the precious stones. There would be railway reconstruction and new construction. New industries would be started here, there, and everywhere ; the bare veld would blossom like the rose, and Hhe farming class flourish. so great would be the demand for food- stuffs at the mines. Schemes of colonisa- tion were mooted, not alone for men who wanted to farm in Africa and had a little capital of their own, but also for the super- fluous girlhood of England. The ocean picture presented to the imagination was of an unending procession of steamers

ROYALTY'S INTEREST IN PARLIAMENT. laden to the Plimsoll line with exports and every sleeping bunk occupied by a sturdy emigrant or daring servant girl or governess forging through the seas from England to the Cape ; and a returning procession with cargoes of gold and passengers laden with newly acquired wealth. The land picture was one of busy cities, new mining camps, and an orderly scramble under Government con- trol for all the good land of the Transvaal and the Orange River Colony by British