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The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Personal Volume

Liberalism

Liberalism.

Now, Liberalism in the olden days meant getting a change in political machinery. When the great Chartist movement in England was in progrees, the whole aim of those who took part in it was to get a change in the political machinery of the country. They paid no attention to social questions. They thought if they got the five points of their charter, they would have accomplished what they wanted. They wished bullot, annual parliaments, payment of members, equal electoral districts, and they demanded manhood suffrage. The Charliests thought if they got these things, they would obtain freedom; that they would have a free House of Commons; that in addition to that, they would get equal rights; that all men would be allowed to express their opinions without fear or favour, or threat of punishment. They imagined also they would have pure Government, no sinecures and no corruption. Now almost all the five points had been obtained and some-thing more even than the Chartlats demanded, They now had manhood suffrage and, in New Zealand, womanhood suffrage. Those who gave that were forced to do it against their will. ('No') The gentleman who said no had had his political education neglected, or had forgotten to read his Hansard, for those who voted in 1893 for woman suffrage had opposed it on every occasion before. (Applause).