If, therefore, the political groundwork of these speeches is sound Liberal principle, their meaning and purpose, taken in connection with the Budget, and the industrial reforms for which it provides, signify a notable advance into places where the thinkers, the pioneers, the men in the advanced trenches, are accustomed to dwell.  Let us acknowledge, with a sense of pleasure and relief, that this is new territory.  New, that is to say, for this country; not new to the best organisations of industrial society that we know of.  New as a clearly seen vision and a connected plan of British, statesmanship; not new as actual experiment in legislation, and as theory held by progressive thinkers of many schools, including some of the fathers of modern Liberal doctrine, and most of our economists.  What is there in these pages repugnant to writers of the type of John Mill, Jevons, and Marshall?  How much of them would even be repelled by Cobden?  In the main they preach a gospel—­that of national “efficiency”—­common to all reformers, and accepted by Bismarck, the modern archetype of “Empire-makers,” as necessary to the consolidation of the great German nation.  An average Australian or Canadian statesman would read them through with almost complete approval of every passage, save only their defence of Free Trade.  Nay more; the apology for property which they put forward—­that it must be “associated in the minds of the mass of the people with ideas of justice and reason”—­is that on which the friends of true conservatism build when they think of the evils of modern civilisation and the great and continuous efforts necessary to repair them.  Who does not conclude, with Mr. Churchill, that “a more scientific, a more elaborate, a more comprehensive social organisation” is indispensable to our country if it is to continue its march to greatness?  Back or forward we must go.

Mr. Churchill, indeed, has thought it wise to raise the specific point at which, in the process of seeking a finer use and adaptation of the human material which forms society, the progressive and reforming statesman parts company with the dogmatic Socialist.  There is no need to labour a distinction which arises from the nature and the activities of the two forces.  British Liberalism is both a mental habit and a method of politics.  Through both these characteristics it is bound to criticise a State so long as in any degree it rests on the principles of “Penguin Island”—­“respect for the rich and contempt for the poor,” and to modify or repeal the rights of property where they clearly conflict with human rights.  But its idealism and its practical responsibilities forbid it to accept the elimination of private enterprise and the assumption by the State of all the instruments of production and distribution.  Socialism has great power of emotional and even religious appeal, of which it would be wise for Liberalism to take account, and it is, on the whole, a beneficent force in society.  But as pure dogma it fits the spirit of man no more exactly than the Shorter Catechism.  As Mr. Churchill well says, both the collectivist and the individualist principles have deep roots in human life, and the statesman can ignore neither.