is not imaginable—but many other poor men also who habitually hang on the authority of great men like himself.
It was when Mr. Morley was so delicately heckled at Newcastle that a member of the Labor party deputation asked him what he thought about the nationalization of the land. Mr. Morley demurred. Mr. Laidler said the Labor party had its own plan. "They remembered that Mr. Herbert Spencer had said that the land had been taken by force and fraud; that gentleman had also said that to right one wrong it takes another." "Why," replies Mr. Morley, "has he said this?" "We all know he has" rejoins Mr. Laidler."But you are aware that he has recalled some of the things he has laid down?" "Yes," rejoins Mr. Laidler; "but if he has stated truth and recalled it the truth will prevail." There we are. This little bit of conversation is precious beyond many pages of "absolute political ethics," judged by the standard of usefulness; and it will be useful to nobody so much as to writers like Mr. Herbert Spencer.
For what has he to say to it all? He says that the opinions quoted by Mr. Laidler were set forth forty years ago in a work "intended to be a system of absolute political ethics; or that which ought to be, as distinguished from relative political ethics, or that which is at present the nearest practical approach to it." These opinions were accompanied by others which forbid the interpretation sometimes put upon them. But yet, on reflection, they satisfied Mr. Spencer so little, he thought them so little guarded or corrected by those other opinions of his, that for the last fifteen years he has not allowed the book that contained them to appear in any language. "Though I still adhere to its general principles, I dissent from some of the deductions"—those, perhaps, which Mr. Laidler regards as truth once uttered and never to be recalled. Besides, what Mr. Spencer said on this subject "was said in the belief that the questions raised were not likely to come to the front in our time or for many generations"; and it did include the statement that, if the community took the land, the necessary business of compensation would be a complicated one. "To justly estimate and liquidate the claims" of our present land-owners "is one of the most intricate problems society one day will have to solve." Since "Social Statics" was published, however, Mr. Spencer has come to revised conclusions; and these he now sets forth in "The Times." Permit me to quote a few sentences from this statement:
