any country. Any modern society, or class of society, by which women are habitually looked upon as inferior to men and created to be men's slaves or playthings, is essentially snobbish, however the snobbishness may be disguised by an outward varnish of polite manners; while, on the other hand, the roughest backwoodsman or miner, such as we see painted to the life in Bret Harte's novels, is essentially a gentleman if his feelings towards women are those of chivalrous respect and reverence.

In saying what I have done of the United States I am quite aware that there is a reverse to the medal, and that grave defects may be pointed out, resolving themselves mainly into too eager a pursuit of wealth, and hence a low tone of commercial morality and a disposition to worship success without sufficiently regarding the means by which it has been attained. This leads to a great deal of jobbery and corruption in the lower regions of political life, and tends to throw politics, especially what may be called the vestry politics of municipalities and State legislatures, into the hands of disreputable adventurers. I generally find, however, that when things get very bad, the respectable citizens, who form the majority, take things into their own hands. If the evil is ruffianism, and the law is too weak to repress it, they form Vigilance Committees, and very soon evolve order out of chaos, so that cities like San Francisco or Denver, in the course of two or three years, become as orderly and lawabiding as Boston or Philadelphia. If organised jobbery is the enemy to contend with, a time comes when the patience of the taxpayers is exhausted, and the Tweeds are relegated from the halls of office to the cells of a penitentiary.

To return nearer home, the question whether our own upper classes or the mass of the nation have shown most political wisdom is equally one of fact rather than of argument.

Foreign policy, as I have already said, is by far the most important element of practical statesmanship. It makes Budgets, regulates finance and taxation, and involves, at every turn, questions of national security and prosperity. In home politics, if we make a mistake we find it out and correct it; if we reject reforms one year we pass them the next. But mistakes in foreign policy rarely admit of correction, and often involve evils reaching far into the future. The Crimean War not only cost millions of money and thousands of lives, in a cause now universally admitted to have been as impossible as it was immoral, viz. that of bolstering up the Empire of the Turks over the Eastern Christians; but it was to a great extent responsible for re-opening the temple of Janus, and converting Europe into an armed camp, groaning under the burden of excessive armaments.

Now if an aristocracy has any raison d'être at all, it is clearly that

of keeping alive wise traditions of foreign policy; looking steadily at broad national interests, not being swayed by gusts of sympathy or mists of prejudice, and proving its title to retain the chief control of political affairs by being, as its name imparts, a Government really of the best-that is, of the wisest, most sagacious, and most temperate class of the nation. Has this been the case during the present generation? Distinctly not; on the contrary, upon all the great questions of foreign policy that have arisen in my recollection, the aristocratic classes have, as a rule, been on the wrong side; that is, on the losing side, and on the side which experience has shown to be contrary to the well-considered and permanent interests of England.

I have mentioned the Crimean War. Looking back on it as a matter of history, could anything be clearer than that it was a hopeless task to attempt to regenerate Turkey, or to repress the rising Christian nationalities of the East, and that it was unwise to commit England to perpetual antagonism with Russia in a cause which was predestined to defeat? Again, can anyone say that it was a wise policy for England to go out of its way to create again the military hegemony of France, which we had combatted in so many great historical wars, and to strengthen the throne of an absolute emperor, who represented the name, and might at any moment, either voluntarily or under the compulsion of domestic difficulties, be driven to represent the policy of the first Napoleon?

The most superficial acquaintance with history and with European politics is sufficient to show that the leading principle of England's foreign policy ought always to be that France is the only country from which really serious danger is to be apprehended; and that with all their good and amiable qualities, a fund of what is called "Chauvinism" exists in the French character, which might be turned by unscrupulous rulers against England. War with France would mean, certainly enormous inconvenience and expense, and possibly might endanger our very national existence, while war with any other Power, such as Russia, would be little more than an idle parade of invincible fleets against unassailable armies, and demonstrations in Central Asia of forces separated from each other by distances and physical obstacles insurmountable, for the present generation at any rate, by any large disciplined host with its necessary encumbrances.

The lesson is that while it is most important to preserve amicable relations with France, and to do everything in our power to cement them by courtesy, conciliation, and commercial intercourse, it is not for our interest that France should be so strong and neighbouring powers so weak as to tempt her to indulge a passion for display and military glory, and to aspire to regain the preponderating position she occupied in the days of Louis XIV. and Napoleon. The rise of

Germany as the first military power of Europe is the greatest possible security for England, and the battles of Sadowa and Sedan were to all intents and purposes English as well as German victories. And yet the sympathies of our upper classes were unmistakably with Austria against Prussia, and with France against Germany.

Again, the formation of an independent Italy was clearly advantageous to us, not only on grounds of sentiment and sympathy, but as removing a constant danger of European war from rivalry between France and Austria, and adding to the barriers against any outbreak of ambitious aggression from either of those Powers. But the sympathies of English Conservatives were against the rise of Italian nationality. So also their sympathies have always been strongly with Turkey against Greece, Servia, Montenegro, Roumania, Bulgaria, and other Christian races in the East who were struggling to emancipate themselves from the withering blight of Turkish rule. I have often asked myself why the sympathies of our upper classes should, upon almost all the foreign questions of the day, have been so constantly what I can only designate as "un-English." The only answer I can find is, that their sympathies are a matter of feeling and social prejudice rather than of reason and political foresight. They sympathised with Louis Napoleon because Paris was an attractive resort, and they found something congenial in the atmosphere of a splendid and luxurious court not troubled by an over-strict morality. They sympathised with Turkey because they were fascinated by the idea of the Turk as a great swell with dignified manner, gorgeous surroundings, a stable full of Arab steeds, and a harem full of Circassian beauties; while the Christian rayah was but a mean, second-class sort of fellow. The same feeling led them to sympathise so strongly with the chivalrous Southern slaveholders against the commonplace Northern Yankee, that they came near to involving the country in the most disastrous possible war against our own flesh and blood on the other side of the Atlantic.

When Lord Beaconsfield's Government took up the tinsel mantle of a sham Imperial policy, and involved the country in a series of shabby and senseless little wars in Afghanistan and South Africa, the Conservative party applauded as loudly as the nation condemned. Upon all the questions to which I have referred I may appeal confidently to history to say whether the aristocracy of England has vindicated its claim to superior power on the ground of superior wisdom, and whether the instinct of the million has not been a safer guide than the prejudice of the privileged classes. I believe the reason is, not that the units of which the millions are composed are individually very well informed about our foreign relations, but that their instincts are mostly right, and they have no prejudices calculated to distort the plain conclusions of common sense.

The cause of Radical reform has, in my judgment, no

worse

enemies than some of its would-be leaders, who use language calculated to convey the impression that Radicalism is to be identified with cheeseparing economy and an abnegation of Imperial responsibility. On the contrary, I believe the strongest feeling of an immense majority of those who would have votes under any system of extended franchise is, that our first duty is to hand down the British Empire to our sons not less great and glorious than we received it from our fathers. I do not believe that any considerable number of any class, and least of all of the working class, entertain the idea that India and our colonies are encumbrances which it would be well to get rid of, or shrink from any extension of our empire because it might add to our responsibilities. Their hesitation in such cases as that of Egypt and New Guinea arises solely from the doubt whether annexation would be just towards the native races, and would really add to the security of the empire. Satisfy it on these points, and I believe the vast majority of the nation would be glad if the course of events led, in some fair and legitimate way, to the extension of our Australian colonies over New Guinea, and to a permanent protectorate of Egypt. In like manner the economy, which is a proper plank of any Radical platform, is an economy in large matters, resulting mainly from a wise foreign policy, and not a niggardly disposition to cavil at trifles and pare down necessary estimates. The present generation has spent in the last thirty years not less than £100,000,000 in avoidable wars; that is, in wars tried by this test, that if we had the thing to do over again we should do it differently. No dispassionate observer, with anything like an adequate acquaintance with European politics and sound statesmanship, will deny that, tried by this test, the Crimean, the Afghan, the Zulu, and the Boer wars were "avoidable wars." Opinions may differ as to the Egyptian war; my own is that it was a necessary war, forced upon us by a military pronunciamento, and that we could not, without serious danger to our Indian Empire, have stood by and allowed our communications with it to be endangered, and, still worse, have it proclaimed to the world that any military adventurer who could get 10,000 soldiers to mutiny could set us at defiance, depose the prince of our nomination, appeal to Mussulman fanaticism, and allow mobs to massacre our subjects and insult our Consul with impunity. However, I admit that there is another side to the question, and I leave its decision to history, confining myself to the clearly avoidable wars, which have entailed on the country a capital cost of fully £100,000,000, and a permanent revenue charge of over £3,000,000 a year. Here is the great field for economy, and also in seeing that in the great spending departments we get money's worth for our money. In other respects I do not believe that a Radical Government would, on the whole, spend less money.

On the contrary, there are many branches of administration, such as education, science and art, sanitary improvements and others, in which more money rather than less ought to be spent. I do not, therefore, look hopefully on the prospects of a Radical majority being able to reduce taxation materially by reducing expenditure. But I look hopefully on the prospect of their being able to adjust the burden of taxation so as to make it much more fair and less oppressive on the mass of the community. The tax on tea, for instance, I look upon as one of the very worst taxes possible. It is a direct discouragement to temperance; it hits hardly the very class whom of all others we ought to deal tenderly with, the unrepresented female half of the population, and especially the poorer class of women, to whom a cup of tea is almost the sole comfort of life; it impedes the growth of trade with China, and checks the investment of capital in our Indian Empire.

The tax on tobacco is also far too high, seeing that it has become practically a necessary of life to the working man, and that a more moderate duty would, to a considerable extent, repay itself by increased consumption. Other taxes might easily be mentioned which it is desirable to modify, but the question arises, How is the deficiency to be made good?

This brings me to say a few words on that which lies at the root of any large reform of our financial system, and which is by far the largest of all the questions looming on the political horizon: I mean the question of land. An attack is impending upon the whole principle of private property in land, and books like those of Mr. George and Mr. Wallace are read by tens of thousands, which advocate what is called its nationalization. I may say at once that I cannot see my way to the practical working of any scheme for the nationalization of land, and still less to the justice of any plan which pro-poses to confiscate it without compensation. But I think there is a great deal of force in many of the arguments which show that property in land is of a peculiar nature, and ought to bear a larger share of public burdens. Property in land is peculiar in the following respects:

1. It is a monopoly in what is as necessary a condition of human existence as air or water. If I have £1,000,000 in personal property I do not stand in the way of A B and C making each another £1,000,000; on the contrary, I rather facilitate it, for wealth proverbially begets wealth. But if I have £1,000,000 in land I practically preclude any one else from acquiring land in a large district, and may, if I please, convert a whole county into a sheep-farm or deer-forest.

2. For this reason, and because it cannot be concealed or removed, landed property is far more exclusively the creature of law, and is