"No class in the community has more reason to be satisfied with the results of the last sixty years than the working men. Into that period have been crowded a series of economic changes, on the whole making for their comfort, and of reforms which have made them the envy of the same classes in other countries. They have got their "Six Points," or something better. It was the utmost demand of their best friends at the beginning of the present reign that they should be free to work out, by combination or otherwise, in their own way, their salvation, that their societies should be legalized, and that the criminal law should not be used to increase the power of capital—in a word, that they should suffer from no disabilities. They find themselves in 1897 in the position of a privileged or favoured class, fenced about with special legislation, and possessed of some rights denied to others. And this period has also been for them one of unexampled material prosperity. Their wages have risen, while the prices of food and most articles of consumption have fallen. The State educates their children gratis. The State makes the acquisition of allotments easy for them. The municipalities give them recreation-grounds and free libraries."