On other subjects Sir Michael Hicks-Beach taunted the Gladstonians with
being now eager to pull to pieces the electoral law which they had themselves accepted in 1885 with a flourish of trumpets, and to replace it by a totally different system, including the payment of Members and " One man, one vote." On the semi-Socialistic questions like the provision of good houses for the poorest class, Sir Michael Beach pointed out that it could not be done without the full consent and even willingness of house-owners; since, so far as he knew, it could not be done so as to pay, and must be done
more or less at a loss. It was being done at a loss in many places ; but the very worst way to get house-owners to consent to lose money by a philanthropic measure, is to frighten them with the prospect of losing their property altogether, which is what the Radical Party are now endeavouring to do. That will produce the greatest possible anxiety on the part of the rich and generous to get rid of their house-property to the needy and speculative builders, who will squeeze the last farthing they can out of their poor tenants. All this is very true and very pertinent. The poor hardly know how tremendous a failure the policy of terror now in force towards the landlord class is likely to be, if it is pushed forward as it has been commenced. No doubt the landlord class would soon change its constituent elements, and instead of being in the main a rich class which takes some pride in improvements, it would become through- out,—what already forms a considerable part of it,—a poor, hard-fisted, and mean class, struggling to get the last farthing out of the tenant.
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