moulded plan deliberately considered by the House of Commons.  That will be a long and painful process to those who are forced from day to day to take part in it.  We shall not shrink from it.  But when that process is over, when the Finance Bill leaves the House of Commons, I think you will agree with me that it ought to leave the House of Commons in its final form.  No amendments, no excision, no modifying or mutilating will be agreed to by us.  We will stand no mincing, and unless Lord Lansdowne and his landlordly friends choose to eat their own mince, Parliament will be dissolved, and we shall come to you in a moment of high consequence for every cause for which Liberalism has ever fought.  See that you do not fail us in that hour.

FOOTNOTES: 

[18] Lord Lansdowne has since been at pains to explain that he did not use the word “mincing.”  That word ought to have been “wincing” or “hesitation”—­it is not clear which.

THE BUDGET AND THE LORDS

NORWICH, July 26, 1909

(From The Manchester Guardian, by permission.)

The Budget is the great political issue of the day.  It involves all other questions; it has brought all other issues to a decisive test. The Daily Mail has stated that the Budget is hung up.  So it is.  It is hung up in triumph over the High Peak; it is hung up as a banner of victory over Dumfries, over Cleveland, and over Mid-Derby.  The miniature general election just concluded has shown that the policy embodied in the Budget, and which inspires the Budget, has vivified and invigorated the Liberal Party, has brought union where there was falling away, has revived enthusiasm where apathy was creeping in.

You cannot but have been impressed with the increasing sense of reality which political affairs have acquired during the last few months.  What is it they are doing at Westminster?  Across and beyond the complicated details of finance, the thousand amendments and more which cover the order paper, the absurd obstruction, the dry discussions in Committee, the interminable repetition of divisions, the angry scenes which flash up from time to time, the white-faced members sitting the whole night through and walking home worn out in the full light of morning—­across and beyond all this, can you not discern a people’s cause in conflict?  Can you not see a great effort to make a big step forward towards that brighter and more equal world for which, be sure, those who come after us will hold our names in honour?  That is the issue which is being decided from week to week in Westminster now, and it is in support of that cause that we are asking from you earnest and unswerving allegiance.