Annual Register (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: stifle the scruples of powerful classes and interests in the country. But good opportunism was nothing more than a recognition of the fact that they might do harm if they rushed at a thing which was momentarily impossible, and that they ought to watch for the proper time and the proper method, lest they should do more harm than good to the cause which they sought to serve. It was the kind of opportunism by which most of the good had been done in the world. The Government only a few days later afforded a painful object lesson in opportunism. In face of the opposition raised by the railway interest in Parliament, Mr. Eitchie announced the intention of the Government to withdraw the Eailways Eegulation Bill which had been introduced with the object of protecting the lives of railway servants, especially shunters. The bill aimed at making the adoption of automatic couplings compulsory within five years from the passing of the bill. That there was urgent need of some such protection as proposed was borne out by the ghastly return of men killed or injured annually on our railways. Unfortunately railway directors could rely on the support of railway shareholders, if an expenditure likely to reduce dividends was suggested; and although every statement of this kind was traversed by those more interested in the lives of railway men than in the interests of shareholders, the Government decided to bend before the storm, and to withdraw the bill without venturing a challenge of strength upon the second reading. CHAPTER III. The Socialists at Leeds?Mr. Courtney in Cornwall?Harrow Election?The Budget?Small Houses Acquisition Bill?Decoration of St. Paul's?Board of Education Bill?The London Government Bill in Committee?The Finance Bill?The Primrose League at the Albert Hall and the Salvat...