Page:The work of the Liberal Party during the Last Fifty Years.pdf/3

3 repeal of duties on imports from foreign countries. And during these years there has been a general and large rise in the wages of Working-men and Labourers in all parts of the country. Farm Labourers’ wages have risen one-half or more, and in some counties they have nearly doubled since the days of Protection and the Corn Law.

But the Liberal Party has done more than give the mass of our people a real representation and a real power in Parliament. It has done more than give them freedom for their industry. It has given them the means to understand what Parliament is doing, and what it ought to do, for it has given them the vast advantage of a Free Press, and to their children the not less vast advantage of cheap and good Schools. Now almost every Labourer can have an admirable newspaper weekly for a penny, or every day one somewhat smaller in size, but not less admirable in quality, for a halfpenny. Newspapers, not so large and not so good as these, cost sevenpence when the Liberal Party began to deal with this question. The taxes on paper, and on the printed newspaper, strangled the Press, and the tax on advertisements was as great when a gardener sought a situation and employment as when a rich man advertised a mansion or an estate.

All this is gone,—these scandals and cruelties of the past are gone. The Liberals spoke and worked; the Tory Opposition step by step, was vanquished, and one after another these great evils vanished, and no longer disgrace English legislation.

And what of the cheap and good Schools? The child of the Labourer may gain an education that will give him as good a prospect, as regards labour and trade, as the child of a richer man has. He will grow up with a sense of self-respect; he will see before him a path along which he may find independence and comfort. The present gain of this is great; the future gain is beyond all we can estimate.

And what of the future? What will Household Suffrage in Counties and the new arrangement of Seats do for the new Voters, and especially for the Farm Labourers? If the new Voters know their interests, and if the Liberals are returned in great power to the new Parliament, two things will have a chance of being done. The Land Laws will be reformed, and much of them reformed out of existence. In past times and now our Land Laws have been framed to protect the great estates of great families. Great estates lead to great farms, and great farms lead to the result that it is almost impossible for Farm Labourers to become Farmers, and thus the path of the intelligent and hard-working Labourer to an improved position and condition for himself and his family is