ENGLISH POLITICS.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1106, 12 May 1893, Page 38

ENGLISH POLITICS.

A very crucial question and a very suggestivt answer were the main features of the discussion in the House of Commons on the subject of the status of Government workmen. The Radicals have frequently asked the Government if they really mean what they have said about shortening hours and increasing pay in the public departments. That they are not quite satisfied on the point is clear enough from their behaviour at by-elections. The Labour Party, for example, opposed Mr Morley very seriously, and they actually kept out Mr Broadhurst the other day at Great Grimsby simply because he took up' a position opposed to the new unionism. The result was the re-election for Grimsby of Mr Heneage, the Tory, who, having represented the district for 20 years, was ousted in 1892 by the Gladstonian, Mr Josse. This was due perhaps in part to the strong support of Sir Edward Watkin, who, though himself opposed on principle in hisownconstituency to Homeßule, advised the electors, when his friend's friend Mr Broadhurst came to stand for the vacancy he had left by resignation, to give Home Rule a trial. This taint of Conservatism may have been one of the factors fatal to Mr Broadhurst. But his opposition to the new unionism must be put down as the key to his failure. The exultation which has filled the Tory organs in consequence ought to be a warning to the Labour Party not to help the enemy. The other side tried to improve the occasion, follow up the victory in fact, in the Commons. There, on March 5, Sir John Gorst moved a resolution ' that no person in Her Majesty's naval establishments should be engaged at wages insufficient for a proper maintenance, and that the conditions of labour as regards hours, wages,, insurance against accident, and provision for old age, should be such as to afford an example to private employers throughout the country.' That is a practical resolution, meaning a great deal, and proposing to start philanthropic reform on right lines. Sir John Gorst made the most of it, chiefly no doubt because he has taken the lead on the Tory side in these matters, and is possibly not averse to embarrassing the Government. Mr Campbell Bannerman, replying on behalf of the Government, did not, we frankly avow, exactly cover himself with glory. He admitted that the Government ought to give good example, but he feared lest the example might be too good, producing the ruin of private enterprise, which is more ruled by economical considerations than are the Government departments. This is pushing prudence to an extreme, which may passibly teach the Radicals to spell 'reaction.' What Mr Campbell Bannerman, however, said of the rate of wages was better. 'The Government,' he declared, ' did not shut their eyes to the change which had of late years come over the public mind. It was acknowledged now that starvation wages meant starvation work.' The last words put the whole case for labour reform into a uutsheli. They are the reply to every , economic plea that has ever been advanced against low wages and long hours, and against legislative interference of all kinds with the relations between masters and workpeople. They embody the supreme economic law ; whatsoever nation trusts to that law implicitly, that nation will pass out of reach of the industrial competition of mankind and prosper greatly.

Mr Gladstone's Government are disappointing the critics in many ways. They have conciliated the Irish by bringing forward and pressing a Home Rule Bill which satisfies them ; they have remained firm in Egypt and they continue to act firmly there ; they have refused to turn their backs upon any acquisition anywhere by British arms ; their diplomacy has pushed the Russians back in the Pamirs; and their navy budget keeps up to the highest standard of progressive modern requirement. In the latter respect the worse criticism which the other side can make is that they refuse to ask for a statute making the progressive policy of naval armament a permanent system, independent of party. The obvious reply for party purposes of course is that the Tories never proposed going so far themselves. The official reason given by the Liberal First Lord was that the Government is responsible for its non-policy only, and may not be in power long enough to carry it on. But, be that as it may, the cohesion of the Ministerial Party has survived the ordeal it has had to undergo, and the prestige of the

Ministry outside has risen rather than fallen. Powerful factors these in the election contest that is at hand.