votes, and nobody dreams of
arguing that the privilege will make them less orderly.

Take the question of colonial government. Twenty years ago the
government of our colonies was a huge job. A small family party in
each, in connexion with the Colonial Office, ruled our colonies.
We had then discontent, and, now and then, a little wholesome
insurrection, especially in Canada. The result was that we have given
up the colonial policy which had hitherto been held sacred, and since
that time not only have our colonies greatly advanced in wealth and
material resources, but no parts of the Empire are more tranquil and
loyal.

Take also the question of Protection. Not thirty years ago, but twelve
years ago, there was a great party in Parliament, led by a duke in
one House and by the son and brother of a duke in the other, which
declared that utter ruin must come, not only on the agricultural
interest, but upon the manufactures and commerce of England, if we
departed from our old theories upon this subject of Protection. They
told us that the labourer--the unhappy labourer--of whom it may be
said in this country,

Here landless labourers hopeless toil and strive,
But taste no portion of the sweets they hive,--

that the labourer was to be ruined; that is, that the paupers were to
be pauperized. These gentlemen were overthrown. The plain, honest,
common sense of the country swept away their cobweb theories, and they
are gone. What is the result? From 1846 to 1857 we have received into
this country of grain of all kinds, including flour, maize, or India
corn--all objects heretofore not of absolute prohibition, but which
were intended to be prohibited until it was not safe for people to
be starved any more--not less than an amount equal in value to
L224,000,000. That is equal to L18,700,000 per annum on the average
of twelve years. During that period, too, your home growth has been
stimulated to an enormous extent. You have imported annually 200,000
tons of guano, and the result has been a proportionate increase in the
productions of the soil, for 200,000 tons of guano will grow an equal
weight and value of wheat. With all this, agriculture was never more
prosperous, while manufactures were never, at the same time, more
extensively exported; and with all this the labourers, for whom the
tears of the Protectionist were shed, have, according to the admission
of the most violent of the class, never been in a better state sin