beral party,
had drawn in fewer supporters than might have been expected. In England
Wallingham, wearing it like a medal, seemed to be courting political
excommunication with it, except that Wallingham was so hard to
effectively curse. The ex-Minister deserved, clearly, any ban that could
be put upon him. No sort of remonstrance could hold him from going
about openly and persistently exhorting people to "think imperially," a
liberty which, as is well known, the Holy Cobdenite Church, supreme in
those islands, expressly forbids. Wallingham appeared to think that
by teaching and explaining he could help his fellow-islanders to see
further than the length of their fists, and exorcise from them
the spirit, only a century and a quarter older and a trifle more
sophisticated, that lost them the American colonies. But so far little
had transpired to show that Wallingham was stronger than nature and
destiny. There had been Wallingham meetings of remarkable enthusiasm;
his supporters called them epoch-making, as if epochs were made of
cheers. But the workingman of Great Britain was declaring stolidly in
the by-elections against any favour to colonial produce at his expense,
thereby showing himself one of those humble instruments that Providence
uses for the downfall of arrogant empires. It will be thus, no doubt,
that the workingman will explain in the future his eminent usefulness
to the government of his country, and it will be in these terms that
the cost of educating him by means of the ballot will be demonstrated.
Meanwhile we may look on and cultivate philosophy; or we may make war
upon the gods with Mr Wallingham which is, perhaps, the better part.

That, to turn from recrimination, was what they saw in Canada looking
across--the queerest thing of all was the recalcitrance of the farm
labourer; they could only stare at that--and it may be that the
spectacle was depressing to hopeful initiative. At all events, it was
plain that the new policy was suffering from a certain flatness on the
further side. As a ballon d'essai it lacked buoyancy; and no doubt
Mr Farquharson was right in declaring that above all things it lacked
actuality, business--the proposition, in good set terms, for men to turn
over, to accept or reject. Nothing could be done with it, Mr Farquharson
averred, as a mere prospect; it was useful only to its enemies. We of
the young countries must be invited to deeds, not theories, of which we
have a restless impa