practical politics was beyond his comprehension. He told working men who sought his advice that labour depended upon capital and had no special right to consideration in the scheme of State.
Sir Robert Stout held out to the working classes the simple belief that the less the Government did for the people the better it was for them. He warned them that those who leaned on an Act of Parliament or a vote of the House of Representatives leaned on a broken reed. When the unemployed asked for work, he said that no Government in that or any other country had ever laid it down as part of its duty to provide work, and he reminded the workers in cold and unsympathetic tones that they were not the only sufferers by the depression.
Outside Parliament, a great change was at work among the masses. They began to look on politics in a new light. They declined to follow wealthy political leaders as peasants in old times followed feudal lords. Political knowledge became broader. Aspects of political economy were discussed at working men’s gatherings, mostly in a crude and uncultured manner, and sometimes with an utter disregard for economic truths, but generally with significant earnestness.
The public mind began to turn from personal politics to political principles. A spirit of speculative politics was abroad. It showed itself in every public movement. Although it sometimes ran wildly, its presence proved that those who were the worst victims of the dreadful condition of affairs that had lasted for nearly a decade were searching for a legislative pathway out of their troubles.
The new and the novel in politics became the subject of general discussion. The women’s franchise movement, for one thing, began to spread with a rapidity that alarmed many who saw no good in it. There were visions of better conditions and of prosperity and contentment, and the very thought of these things made the people’s hearts beat faster.
The Government struggled through three stormy years of existence, fighting its opponents with one hand and fending off the depression, the unemployed, and clamouring labour with the other. It was the Government’s policy not only to encourage the
