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working men being insulted by the same wild statements and extravagant abuse. Are we weak enough to know no better than to believe that the Conservative Government has caused depression in trade? Do not we know well enough that a considerable amount of our trade has gone to other countries, and what has the present Government to do with that? Do we not know that much misery and depression have been caused by commercial speculation—and what has the Conservative Government to do with that? Increased taxes! bad harvests! unfavourable weather!—all due to the Conservative Government—and we working men are supposed to be weak and ignorant enough to believe it all. Let us turn again to a few facts. Taxation! Do we not remember that under Lord John Russell the income tax rose at once from 7d. to 1s. in the pound? Taxation! Do they suppose we are not educated enough to calculate? Why, in the last five years of Mr. Gladstone's Government the taxation per head for the five years amounted to £10 7s. O¾d. This calculation is based upon the figures given in a Financial Reform Almanack a Radical authority. And in the five years of Lord Beaconsfield's Government the taxation per head for the five years amounted to £10 3s. O¾d.—a balance of 4s. per head in favour of the present Government, or a total amount of more than six and a-half millions. Mr. Gladstone, with all his immense talent, utterly fails to weaken the force of this fact, though he tries hard to do so. Moreover, I have been able to learn from the newspapers that the Bank rate was 8½ per cent, in November, 1873, just before Mr. Gladstone resigned. It has never been higher than 6 per cent, since, and has not averaged 4 per cent. I could express an opinion, much more sensibly I hope than the wild statements I have referred to, respecting the principal causes of commercial depression, but I am anxious to bring the present paper to a close. Before doing so let me candidly tell these writers and speakers whose arguments are all reviling, and whose policy is all abuse, that we working men are not to be won by these weapons.
I have myself heard language on these matters that no Christian man would and no English gentleman could, ever use. Now we do like to be represented in our House of Commons by English gentlemen, and we do like to be treated as though we could weigh sound argument, and were not to be influenced merely by low and violent abuse. We know we have now a Government in office that has kept our country in calmness and peace during long depression and violent agitations—that has preserved peace with the nations of Europe in spite of immense difficulties—that has raised our national credit and
