of a very different kind from that which we are now experiencing. We must have the consciousness that the great body of the people are in a situation intolerable to them....” Compare with this that passage from his late _Endymion_--a novel of memories--where “Job Thornberry” (John Bright) discusses this very problem with the hero. “‘... But, after all,’ said Endymion, ‘America is as little in favour of free exchange as we are. She may send us her bread-stuffs, but her laws will not admit our goods, except on the payment of enormous duties.’ “‘Pish!’ said Thornberry. ‘I do not care this for their enormous duties. Let me have free imports, and I will soon settle their duties.’ “‘To fight hostile tariffs with free imports,’ said Endymion, ‘Is not that fighting against odds?’ “‘Not a bit. This country has nothing to do but to consider its imports. Foreigners will not give us their products for nothing; but as for their tariffs, if we were wise men, and looked to our real interests, their hostile tariffs, as you call them, would soon be falling down like an old wall.’ “‘Well, I confess,’ said Endymion, ‘I have for some time thought the principle of free exchange was a sound one; but its application in a country like this would be very difficult, and require, I should think, great prudence and moderation.’ “‘... Ignorance and timidity,’ said Thornberry, scornfully. “‘Not exactly that, I hope,’ said Endymion; ‘_but you cannot deny that the home market is a most important element in the consideration of our public wealth, and it mainly rests on the agriculture of the country_.’” To which “Thornberry” retorts that “England is to be ruined to keep up rents.” At all events, it is here, as elsewhere, evident what led Disraeli to oppose the introduction of unregulated competition. Things have long since marched quickly. The wall of tariffs has not tottered; Disraeli never imagined that it would. “Foreigners” now do sometimes “give us their products for nothing” through those colossal “Trusts” that make enormous profits at home to undersell us at a loss and capture our markets abroad. Competition has been reduced to the absurd. Nor is the Continent in that plight which marked it when Disraeli uttered the speech above cited. All these changed conditions require changing remedies, but the heroic remedy lately advocated may well occasion thoughtful retrospect, and the speech I have chosen may be profitably pondered in this connection. And can any reader of his utterances doubt that, had he lived, he would never have left the problem of the housing of the poor to private experiment, or merely municipal omniscience? Thirty-three years ago he wrote as follows:--