the British people in the year of grace 1909 are going to be ruled through a representative Assembly, elected by six or seven millions of voters, about which almost every one in the country, man or woman, has a chance of being consulted, or whether they are going to allow themselves to be dictated to and domineered over by a minute minority of titled persons, who represent nobody, who are answerable to nobody, and who only scurry up to London to vote in their party interests, in their class interests, and in their own interests.

These will be the issues, and I am content that the responsibility for such a struggle, if it should come, should rest with the House of Lords themselves.  But if it is to come, we shall not complain, we shall not draw back from it.  We will engage in it with all our hearts and with all our might, it being always clearly understood that the fight will be a fight to the finish, and that the fullest forfeits, which are in accordance with the national welfare, shall be exacted from the defeated foe.

FOOTNOTES: 

[20] We do not, of course, ask it of the individual taxpayer.  That would be an impossible inquisition.  But the House of Commons asks itself when it has to choose between taxes on various forms of wealth, “By what process was it got?”

THE BUDGET AND PROPERTY.

ABERNETHY, October 7, 1909

(From The Daily Telegraph, by permission of the Editor.)

This is a very fine gathering for a lonely glen, and it augurs well for the spirit of Liberalism.  Much will be expected of Scotland in the near future.  She will be invited to pronounce upon some of the largest and most complicated questions of politics and finance that can possibly engage the attention of thoughtful citizens, and her decision will perhaps govern events.

There is one contrast between Parties which springs to the eye at once.  One Party has a policy, detailed, definite, declared, actually in being.  The other Party has no policy.  The Conservative Party has no policy which it can put before the country at the present time on any of the great controverted questions of the day.  On most of the previous occasions when we have approached a great trial of strength, the Conservative Party have had a policy of their own which they could state in clear terms.  You would naturally expect some reticence or reserve from the head of a Government responsible for the day-to-day administration of affairs.  But what do you see at the present time?  Mr. Asquith speaks out boldly and plainly on all the great questions which are being debated, and it is the Leader of the Opposition who has to take refuge in a tactical and evasive attitude.  Why, Mr. Balfour is unable to answer the simplest questions.  At Birmingham, the Prime Minister asked him in so many words:  What alternative did he propose to the Budget?  What did he mean by Tariff Reform? and what was his counsel to the House of Lords?