David Lloyd George: [to Neville Chamberlain] 'Sacrifice the seals of office' Norway Debate - 1940

7 May 1940, House of Commons, United Kingdom

I intervene with reluctance in this debate. All my Honourable Friends know very well that I hesitated whether I should take part in it at all, because I thought it was more desirable that we should have a discussion in which Members not of front-bench rank should take a good deal of the time, but I think that it is my duty, having regard to the fact that I have some experience of these matters.

I feel that I ought to say something, from such experience as I have had in the past of the conduct of war in victory and in disaster, about what I think of the present situation and what really ought to be done.

I have heard most of the speech of the right Honourable Gentleman, the Secretary of State for Air, and I should think that the facts which he gave us justify the criticism against the Government and are no defence of the Government.

He said that we had practically no chance of making good in our Norwegian expedition unless we were able to have our air bases there which would enable us to put our fighters into the air bases which would enable us to put our fighters into the air in order to counteract the very destructive effect of the German aeroplanes. But we knew there were no air bases available. We know they were in the hands of the enemy.

The Right Honourable Gentleman admits that. He says that the Government knew beforehand that there were no air bases unless they were captured from the enemy, he even intimates that the object of the Trondheim expedition was to capture an air base. In that case we ought to have had picked men, and not a kind of a scratch team. We ought to have sent the very best man available, especially as we could not send the whole of our force in the first instalment.

The first instalment ought to have been picked men, because the Germans had picked men, as is generally accepted. We sent there, I think, a Territorial Brigade which had not had very much training. They were very young men, but they were the advance party of an expeditionary force which had to accomplish a task upon which the success of the whole force depended.

We ought also to have had combined action between the Army and the Navy. We had neither. We gambled on the chance of getting air bases. We did not take any measures that would guarantee success. This vital expedition, which would have made a vast difference to this country’s strategical position, and an infinite difference to her prestige in the world, was made dependent upon this half-prepared, half-baked expeditionary force without any combination at all between the Army and the Navy.

There could not have been a more serious condemnation of the whole action of the Government in respect of Norway. They knew perfectly well that the Germans were preparing for a raid on some adjoining country, probably in the Balkans, and it is a severe condemnation of them that they should have gambled in this way. The right Honourable Gentleman spoke about the gallantry of our men, and were are equally proud of them. It thrills us to read the stories. All the more shame that we should have made fools of them.

Now, the situation is a grave one – I agree with what was said about that by the Prime Minister – and it would be a fatal error on our part not to acknowledge it. In such experience as I have had of war direction I have never tried to minimise the extent of such a disaster. I try to get the facts, because unless you really face the facts you cannot overcome the difficulties and restore the position.

There is no case, in m judgment, for panic. I say that deliberately, after a good deal of reflection, but there is a grave case for pulling ourselves together. We cannot do that unless we tell the country the facts. They must realise the magnitude of our jeopardy. We have two immense Empires federated in the struggle for liberty, the two greatest Empires in the world, the British Empire and the French Empire, with almost inexhaustible resources, but not easily mobilised, not easily roused, especially ours.

You are not going to rouse the British Empire – because you will have to do it not merely in Britain, but throughout the world – to put forth the whole of its strength unless and until you tell it what the facts and realities are of the peril that confronts it. At the cost of unpleasantness, I am going to do that, not with a view to terrifying them or spreading dismay and consternation, but with a view to rousing real action and not sham action as we have had. It is no use saying that the balance of advantage is in our favour, or adding up the number of ships sunk on either side. That kind of petty-cash balance-sheer is not the thing to look at. There are more serious realities than that.

First of all, we are strategically in a very much worse position than we were before. Now see these words, as they pass along, “strategically better”, “strategically worse”, because victory or defeat may depend upon the application of those two words. The greatest triumph of this extraordinary man Hitler has been that he has succeeded in putting his country into an infinitely better strategical position to wage war than his predecessors did in 1914, and by what he has done now he has increased his own advantages and he has put us into greater jeopardy.

Let us face it like men of British blood. Graver perils than this have been fought through in the past. Let us face it; just look at it, Czecho-Slovakia, that spear-heard, aimed at the heart of Germany, broken. A million of the finest troops in Europe of a very well-educated race of free man, all gone. Such advantage as there is in Czecho-Slovakia, with its great lines of fortifications and its Skoda works, which turned out the finest artillery in the 1914 war are in the hands of Hitler. That is one strategic advantage which we have handed over to the enemy.

You have a Franco-Russian Alliance, negotiated by an old friend of mine, M Barthou, by which Russia was to come to the aid of Czecho-Slovakia if France did. There would come to the aid of Czecho-Slovakia if France did. There would have been a two-front war for Germany. She knows what that means, because she had it before. That door is closed. We sent a third-class clerk to negotiate with the Prime Minister of the greatest country in the world, while Germany sent her Foreign Secretary with a resplendent retinue. That door is closed. Oil in Russian ships is now coming across the Black Sea for the aeroplanes of Germany.

Strategically, that was an immense victory for the Nazi Government.

The third – Rumania. We have tried to form one big syndicate, but Germany has been there starting, not one syndicate, but little syndicates here and there to develop the land, to increase production of work and to give her all sorts of machinery. She has practically got Rumania in her hands; and if she did not have it in her hands a month ago, by this failure in Norway you have handed over Rumania. What else? Spain. I am hoping that my fears about that will not prove true. Now you have Scandinavia and Norway, which were one of the great strategic possibilities of the war, and they are in German hands.

It is no use criticising Sweden. Sweden is now between Germany on the left and Germany on the right. What right have we to criticise the little Powers? We promised to rescue them. We promised to protect them. We never sent an aeroplane to Poland. We were too late in Norway, although we had the warning of ships in the Baltic and barges crammed with troops. They have to think about themselves. They do not want German troops on their soil, and they are definitely frightened, and for good reasons.

It deprives us of a possible opening in that direction. That has gone. It brings the German aeroplanes and submarines 200 miles nearer our coast. It does more than that. There is the opening-up of the Baltic. I venture to say that that will be considered, in regard to the protection of our trade and commerce. it is a grave menace. Strategically, we are infinitely worse off.

With regard to our prestige, can you doubt that that has been impaired? You have only to read the friendly American paper to find out, highly friendly papers that were backing us up through thick and thin, in a country which was pro-Ally. I do not know whether Honourable Members ever listen to the British Broadcasting Corporation’s relay of the American commentator, Raymond Gram Swing. He is very remarkable. He gave an account of the change in American opinion. He said that what has happened was a hammer-blow to Americans. They were perfectly dazed. Before that they were convinced that victory was going to be won by the Allies, and they had never any doubt about it. This is the first doubt that has entered their minds, and they said, “It will be up to us to defend democracy”.

There is also the fact the state of our preparations five years ago, in 1935. In 1935 a promise of rearmament was made; in 1936 active proposals were submitted to this House and were passed without a Division. The Government said they would commit us to £1,500,000,000. If they had asked for more and had said that it was necessary, then there was no party in this House that would have challenged it. And if any party had challenged it, you had your majority.

Is there anyone in this House who will say that he is satisfied with the speed and efficiency of the preparations in any respect for air, for Army or for Navy? Everybody is disappointed. Everybody knows that whatever was done was done half-heartedly, ineffectively, without drive and unintelligently. For three to four years I thought to myself that the facts with regard to Germany were exaggerated by the First Lord, because the then Prime Minister – not this Prime Minister – said that they were not true. The First Lord, Mr Churchill, was right about it. Then came the war.

The Prime Minister must remember that he has met this formidable foe of ours in peace and in war. He has always been worsted. He is not in a position to put it on the ground of friendship. He has appealed for sacrifice. The nation is prepared for every sacrifice so long as it has leadership, as long as the Government show clearly what they are aiming at and so long as the nation is confident that those who are leading it are doing their best. I say solemnly that the Prime Minister should give an example of sacrifice, because there is nothing which can contribute more to victory in this war than that he should sacrifice the seals of office.

David Lloyd George: 'This is the story of two little nations', Great Pinnacle of Sacrifice - 1914

21 September 1914, Queens Hall, London, United Kingdom

This is the story of two little nations. The world owes much to the little nations

The greatest art in the world was the work of little nations; the most enduring literature of the world came from little nations; the greatest literature of England came when she was a nation of the size of Belgium fighting a great Empire. The heroic deeds that thrill humanity through generations were the deeds of little nations fighting for their freedom. Yes and the salvation of mankind came through a little nation. 

God has chosen little nations as the vessels by which He carriesHis choicest wines to the lips of humanity, to rejoice their hearts, to exalt their vision, to stimulate and strengthen their faith; and if we had stood by when two little nations were being crushed and broken by the brutal hands of barbarism, our shame would have rung down the everlasting ages.

But Germany insists that this is an attack by a lower civilization upon a higher one. As a matter of fact, the attack was begun by the civilization which calls itself the higher one. I am no apologist for Russia; she has perpetrated deeds of which I have no doubt her best sons are ashamed. What Empire has not? But Germany is the last Empire to point the finger of reproach at Russia. 

Russia has made sacrifices for freedom—great sacrifices. 

Do you remember the cry of Bulgaria when she was torn by the most insensate tyranny that Europe has ever seen? Who listened to that cry? The only answer of the “higher civilization” was that the liberty of the Bulgarian peasants was not worth the life of a single Pomeranian’soldiers. But the “rude barbarians” of the North sent their sons by the thousand to die for Bulgarian freedom. What about England? Go to Greece, the Netherlands, Italy, Germany, and France—in all those lands I could point out places where the sons of Britain have died for the freedom of those people. France has made sacrifices for the freedom of other lands than her own. Can you name a single country in the world for the freedom of which modern Prussia has ever sacrificed a single life? 

By the test of our faith the highest standard of civilization is the readiness to sacrifice for others. 

 Have you read the Kaiser’s speeches? They are full of the glitter and bluster of German militarism—“mailed fist” and “shining armor”. Poor old mailed fist! Its knuckles are getting a little bruised. Poor shining armor! The shine is being knocked out of it. There is the same swagger and boastfulness runing through the whole of the speeches. The extract which was given in the British weekly this week is a very remarkable product as an illustration of the spirit we have to fight. It is the Kaiser’s speech to his soldiers on the way to the front: 

Remember that the German people are the chosen of God. On me, the German Emperor, the Spirit of God has descended. I am His sword, His weapon and His Vicegerent. Woe to the disobedient, and death to cowards and unbelievers. 

Lunacy is always distressing, but sometimes it is dangerous; and when you get it manifested in the head of the State, and it has become the policy of a great Empire, it is about time that it should be ruthlessly put away. 

I do not believe he meant all these speeches; it is simply the martial straddle he had acquired. But there were men around him who meant every word of them. This was their religion. Treaties? They tangle the feet of Germany in her advance. Cut them with the sword! Little nations? They hinder the advance of Germany heel. The Russia Slav? He challenges the supremacy of Germany in Europe. 

Hurl your legions at him and massacre him! Britain? She is a constant menace to the predominance of Germany in the world. 

Wrest the trident out of her hand. 

Christianity? Sickly sentimentalism about sacrifice for others! Poor pap for German digestion! 

We will have a new diet. We will force it upon the world. It will be made in Germany—the diet of blood and iron. What remains? Treaties have gone. The honor of nations has gone. Libery has gone. What is left? Germany. Germany is left!“

Deutschland über Alles!”

That is what we are fighting —that claim to predominance of a material, hard civilization which, if it once rulers and sways the word, liberty goes, democracy vanishes. And unless Britain and her sons come to the rescue it will be a dark day for humanity. 

Have you followed the Prussian Junker ’and his doings? We are not fighting the German people are under the heel of this military caste, and it will be a day of rejoicing for the German peasant, artisan and trader when the military caste is broken. You know its pretensions. 

They give themselves the air of demigods. They walk the pavements and civilians and their wives are swept into the gutter; they have no right to stand in the way of a great Prussia soldier. Men, women, nations—they all have to go. He thinks all he has to say is, “We are in a hurry.”

 That is the answer he gave to Belgium -“Rapidity of action is Germany’s greatest asset,” which means, “I am in a hurry; clear out of my way”

 You know the type of motorist, the terror of the roads, with a sixty-horse-power car, who thinks the roads are made for him, and knock down anybody who impedes the actin of his car by a single mile an hour. The Prussian Junker is the road-hog of Europe. Small nationalities in his way are hurled to the roadside, bleeding and broken. Women and children are crushed under the wheels of his cruel car, and Britain is ordered out of his road. All I can say is this: if the old Britain spirit is alive in British hearts, that bully will be torn from his seat. Were he to win, it, would be the greatest catastrophe that has befallen democracy since the day of the Holy Alliance and its ascendancy. 

 They think we cannot beat them. It will not be easy. It will be a long job; it will be a terrible war; but in the end we shall march through terror to triumph. 

We shall need all our qualities—every quality that Britain and its people possess—prudence in counsel, daring in action, tenacity in purpose, courage in defeat, moderation in victory; in all things faith.   

It has pleased them to believe and to preach the belief that we are a decadent and degenerate people. They proclaim to the world through their professors that we are a nonheroic nation skulking behind our mahogany counters, whilst we egg on more gallant races to their destruction. This is a description given of us in Germany- “a timorous, craven nation, trusting to its Fleet”

 I think they are beginning to find their mistake out already - and there are half a million young men of Britain who have already registered a vow to their King that they will cross the seas and hurl that insult to Britain courage against its perpetrators on the battlefields of France and Germany. We want half a million more; and we shall get them. 

I envy you young people your opportunity. They have put up the age limit for the Army, but I am sorry to say I have marched a good many years even beyond that. It is a great opportunity, and opportunity that only comes once in many centuries to the children of men. 

For most generations sacrifice comes in drab and weariness of spirit. It comes to you today, and it comes today to us all, in the form of the glow and trill of a great movement for liberty, that impels millions throughout Europe to the same noble end. 

It is a great war for the emancipation of Europe from the thralldom of a military caste which has thrown its shadows upon two generations of men, and is now plunging the world into a welter of bloodshed and  death. 

Some have already given their lives. 

There are some who have given more than their own lives; they have their courage, and may God be their comfort and their strength. 

But their reward is at hand; those who have fallen have died consecrated deaths. 

They have taken their part in the making of a new Europe—a new world. I can see signs of its coming in the glare of the battle-field. 

The people will gain more by this struggle in all lands than they comprehend at the present moment. It is true they will be free of the greatest menace to their freedom. That is not all. There is something infinitely greater and more enduring which is emerging and more exalted than the old. I see among all classes, high and low, shedding them of selfishness, a new recognition that the honor of the country does not depend merely on the maintenance of its glory in the stricken field, but also in protecting its homes from distress. It is bringing a new outlook for all classes. The great flood of luxury and sloth which had submerged the land is receding, and a New Britain is appearing. 

We can see for the first time the fundamental things that matter in life and that have been obscured from our vision by the tropical growth of prosperity. 

May I tell you in a simple parable what I think this war is doing for us? I know a valley in North Wales, between the mountains and the sea. It is a beautiful valley, sung, comfortable, and sheltered by the mountains from all the bitter blasts. 

But it is very enervating, and I remember how the boys were in the habit of mountains in the distance, and to be stimulated and freshened by the breezes which came from the hilltops, and by the great spectacle of their grandeur. We have been living in the sheltered valley for generations. We have been too comfortable and too indulgent—many, perhaps, too selfish—and the tern hand of fate has scourged us to an elevation where we can see the great everlasting thngs that matter for a nation the great peaks we had forgotten, of Honor, Duty, Patriotism, and, clad in glittering white, the great pinnacle of Sacrifice pointing like arugged finger as to Heaven. 

We shall descend into the valleys again; but as long as the men and women of this generation last, they will carry in their hearts the image of those great mountain peaks whose foundations are not shaken, though Europe rock and sway in the convulsions of a great war. 

David Lloyd George: 'Why should I put burdens on the people?', Limehouse speech - 1909

31 July 1909, London, England

A few months ago a meeting was held not far from this hall in the heart of the City of London, demanding that the Government should launch into enormous expenditure on the Navy. That meeting ended up with a resolution promising that those who passed the resolution would give financial support to the Government in their undertaking. There have been two or three meetings held in the City of London since, attended by the same class of people but not ending up with a resolution promising to pay. On the contrary, we are spending the money, but they wont pay. What has happened since to alter their tone? Simply that we have sent in the bill. We started our four Dreadnoughts. They cost eight millions of money. We promised them four more. They cost another eight millions.

Somebody has got to pay; and then these gentlemen say: Perfectly true; somebody has got to pay but we would rather that somebody were somebody else. We started building; we wanted money to pay for the building; so we sent the hat round. We sent it round amongst the workmen and winders of Derbyshire and Yorkshire, the weavers of High Peak and the Scotsmen of Dumfries who, like all their countrymen, know the value of money. They all dropped in their coppers. We went round Belgravia; and there has been such a howl ever since that it has completely deafened us.

Taxes that will bring forth fruit

But they say 'It is not so much the Dreadnoughts we object to; it is Pensions'. If they objected to Pensions, why did they promise them? They won elections on the strength of their promises. It is true they never carried them out. Deception is always a pretty contemptible vice, but to deceive the poor is the meanest of all. But they say, 'When we promised Pensions, we meant Pensions at the expense of people for whom they were provided. We simply meant to bring in a Bill to compel workmen to contribute to their own Pensions'. If that is what they meant why did they not say so? The Budget, as your Chairman has already so well reminded you, is introduced not merely for the purpose of raising barren taxes, but taxes that are fertile, taxes that will bring forth fruit - the security of the country, which is paramount in the minds of all. The provision for the aged and deserving poor - it was time it was done. It is rather a shame for a rich country like ours - probably the richest in the world, if not the richest the world has ever seen, that it should allow those who have toiled all their days to end in penury and possibly starvation. It is rather hard that an old workman should have to find his way to the gates of the tomb, bleeding and footsore, through the brambles and thorns of poverty. We cut a new path for him, an easier one, a pleasanter one, through fields of waving corn. We are raising money to pay for the new road, aye, and to widen it, so that 200,000 paupers shall be able to join in the march. There are so many in the country blessed by Providence with great wealth, and if there are amongst them men who grudge out of their riches a fair contribution towards the less fortunate of their fellow-countrymen they are very shabby rich men. We propose to do more by means of the Budget. We are raising money to provide against the evils and the sufferings that follow from unemployment. We are raising money for the purpose of assisting our great friendly societies to provide for the sick and the widows and orphans. We are providing money to enable us to develop the resources of our own land. I do not believe any fair-minded man would challenge the justice and the fairness of the objects which we have in view in raising this money.

But there are some of them who say, 'The taxes themselves are unjust, unfair, unequal, oppressive notably so the land taxes'. They are engaged, not merely in the House of Commons, but outside the House of Commons, in assailing these taxes with a concentrated and sustained ferocity which will not allow even a comma to escape with its life. Now, are these taxes really so wicked? Let us examine them; because it is perfectly clear that the one part of the Budget that attracts all the hostility and animosity is that part which deals with the taxation of land. Well, now let us examine it. I do not want you to consider merely abstract principles. I want to invite your attention to a number of concrete cases; fair samples to show you how in these concrete illustrations our Budget proposals work. Now let us take them. Let us take first of all the tax on undeveloped land and on increment.

The fraud of the few and the folly of the many

Not far from here, not so many years ago, between the Lea and the Thames you had hundreds of acres of land which was not very useful even for agricultural purposes. In the main it was a sodden marsh. The commerce and the trade of London increased under Free Trade, the tonnage of your shipping went up by hundreds of thousands of tons and by millions; labour was attracted from all parts of the country to cope with all this trade and business which was done here. What happened? There was no housing accommodation. This Port of London became overcrowded, and the population overflowed. That was the opportunity of the owners of the marsh. All that land became valuable building land, and land which used to be rented at £2 or £3 an acre has been selling within the last few years at £2,000 an acre, £3,000 an acre, £6,000 an acre, £8,000 an acre. Who created that increment? Who made that golden swamp? Was it the landlord? Was it his energy? Was it his brains - a very bad look out for the place if it were - his forethought? It was purely the combined efforts of all the people engaged in the trade and commerce of the Port of London - trader, merchant, shipowner, dock labourer, workman, everybody except the landlord. Now, you follow that transaction. Land worth £2 or £3 an acre running up to thousands.

During the time it was ripening the landlord was paying his rates and taxes, not on £2 or £3 an acre. It was agricultural land, and because it was agricultural land a munificent Tory Government voted a sum of two millions to pay half the rates of those poor distressed landlords, and you and I had to pay taxes in order to enable those landlords to pay half their rates on agricultural land, while it was going up every year by hundreds of pounds through your efforts and the efforts of your neighbours. Well, now, that is coming to an end. On the walls of Mr Balfour's meeting last Friday were the words: 'We protect against fraud and folly. So do I. These things I am gong to tell you of have only been possible up to the present through the fraud of the few and the folly of the many'.

We mean to value all the land in the kingdom

Now, what is going to happen in the future? In future those landlords will have to contribute to the taxation of the country on the basis of the real value - only one halfpenny in the pound! Only a halfpenny! And that is what all the howling is about. But there is another little tax called the increment tax. For the future what will happen? We mean to value all the land in the kingdom. And here you can draw no distinction between agricultural land and other land, for the simple reason that East and West Ham was agricultural land a few years ago! And if land goes up in the future by hundreds and thousands an acre through the efforts of the community, the community will get 20 per cent. of that increment. Ah! What a misfortune it is that there was not a Chancellor of the Exchequer who did this thirty years ago. Only thirty years ago, and we should now be enjoying an abundant revenue from this source.

Now I have given you West Ham. Let me give you a few more cases. Take cases like Golders Green and other cases of similar kind where the value of land has gone up in the course, perhaps, of a couple of years through a new tramway or a new railway being opened. Golders Green is a case in point. A few years ago there was a plot of land there which was sold at £160. Last year I went and opened a Tube railway there.

What was the result? This year that very piece of land has been sold for £2,100 - £160 before the railway was opened - before I was there - £2,100 now. I am entitled to 20 per cent. Now there are many cases where landlords take advantage of the exigencies of commerce and of industry - take advantage of the needs of municipalities and even of national needs and of the monopoly which they have got in land in a particular neighbourhood in order to demand extortionate prices. Take the very well known case of the Duke of Northumberland when a County Council wanted to buy a small plot of land as a site for a school to train the children, who in due course would become the men labouring on his property. The rent was quite an insignificant thing.

His contribution to the rates - I forget - I think it was on the basis of 30s. an acre. What did he demand for it for a school? £900 an acre. All we say is this - Mr Buxton and I say - if it is worth £900, let him pay taxes on £900.

There are several of these cases that I want to give to you. Take the town of Bootle, a town created very much in the same way as these towns in the East of London - purely by the commerce of Liverpool. In 1879, the rates of Bootle were £9,000 a year - the ground rents were £10,000 - so that the landlord was receiving more from the industry of the community than all the rates derived by the municipality for the benefit of the town.

In 1898 the rates had gone up to £94,000 a year - for improving the place, constructing roads, laying out parks and extending lighting and opening up the place. But the ground landlord was receiving in ground rents £100,000. It is time that he should pay for this value. A case was given me from Richmond which is very interesting. The Town Council of Richmond recently built some workmen's cottages under a housing scheme. The land appeared on the rate-book as of the value of £4, and being agricultural the landlord paid only half the rates, and you and I paid the rest for him. It is situated on the extreme edge of the borough, therefore not very accessible, and the Town Council naturally thought they would get it cheap. But they did not know their landlord. They had to pay £2,000 an acre for it. The result is that instead of having a good housing scheme with plenty of gardens and open space, plenty of breathing space, plenty of room for the workmen at the end of their days, forty cottages had to be crowded on two acres. Now if the land had been valued at its true value, the landlord would have been at any rate contributing his fair share of the public revenue, and it is just conceivable that he might have been driven to sell at a more reasonable price.

I do not want to weary you with these cases. But I could give you many. I am a member of a Welsh County Council, and landlords even in Wales are not more reasonable. The police committee the other day wanted a site for a police station. Well, you might have imagined that if a landlord sold land cheaply for anything it would have been for a police station. The housing of the working classes that is a different matter. But a police station means security for property.

Not at all. The total population of Carnarvonshire is not as much - I am not sure it is as great - as the population of Limehouse alone. It is a scattered area; no great crowded populations there. And yet they demanded for a piece of land which was contributing 2s. a year to the rates, £2,500 an acre! All we say is, If their land is as valuable as all that, let it have the same value in the assessment book as it seems to possess in the auction-room. There are no end of these cases.

There was case from Greenock the other day. The Admiralty wanted a torpedo range. Here was an opportunity for patriotism! These are the men who want an efficient Navy to protect our shores, and the Admiralty state that one element in efficiency is straight shooting, and say: We want a range for practice for torpedoes on the coast of Scotland. There was a piece of land there. It was rated at something like £11 10s. a year. They went to the landlord - they had to pay for it - well now, just you guess, whilst I am finding it out. It had a rating value of £11 2s., and it was sold to the nation for £27,225. And these are the gentlemen who accuse us of robbery and spoliation! Now all we say is this: In future you must pay one halfpenny in the pound on the real value of your land.

In addition to that, if the value goes up - not owing to your efforts - if you spend money on improving it we will give you credit for it - but if it goes up owing to the industry and the energy of the people living in that locality, one-fifth of that increment shall in future be taken as a toll by the State. They say: Why should you tax this increment on landlords and not on other classes of the community? They say: You are taxing the landlord because the value of his property is going up through the growth of population, through the increased prosperity for the community. Does not the value of a doctor's business go up in the same way?

The landlord is a gentleman who does not earn his wealth

Ah, fancy their comparing themselves for a moment! What is the landlord's increment? Who is the landlord? The landlord is a gentleman - I have not a word to say about him in his personal capacity - the landlord is a gentleman who does not earn his wealth. He does not even take the trouble to receive his wealth. He has a host of agents and clerks to receive it for him. He does not even take the trouble to spend his wealth. He has a host of people around him to do the actual spending for him. He never sees it until he comes to enjoy it. His sole function, his chief pride, is stately consumption of wealth produced by others. What about the doctor's income? How does the doctor earn his income? The doctor is a man who visits our homes when they are darkened with the shadow of death: who, by his skill, his trained courage, his genius, wrings hope out of the grip of despair, wins life out of the fangs of the Great Destroyer. All blessings upon him and his divine art of healing that mends bruised bodies and anxious hearts. To compare the reward which he gets for that labour with the wealth which pours into the pockets of the landlord purely owing to the possession of his monopoly is a piece - if they will forgive me for saying so - of insolence which no intelligent man would tolerate. Now that is the halfpenny tax on unearned increment.

This system is not business, it is blackmail

Now I come to the reversion tax. What is the reversion tax? You have got a system in the country which is not tolerated in any other country of the world, except, I believe, Turkey; the system whereby landlords take advantage of the fact that they have got complete control over the land to let it for a term of years, spend money upon it in building, in developing it. You improve the building, and year by year the value passes into the pockets of the landlord, and at the end of sixty, seventy, eighty or ninety years the whole of it passes away to the pockets of a man who never spent a penny upon it. In Scotland they have a system of nine hundred and ninety-nine years lease. The Scotsmen have a very shrewd idea that at the end of nine hundred and ninety-nine years there will probably be a better land system in existence, and they are prepared to take their chance of the millennium coming round by that time. But in this country we have sixty years leases. I know districts - quarry districts in Wales where a little bit of barren rock where you could not feed a goat, where the landlord could not get a shilling an acre for agricultural rent, is let to quarrymen for the purpose of building houses, where 30s or £2 a house is charged for ground rent. The quarryman builds his house. He goes to a building society to borrow money. He pays out of his hard-earned weekly wage contributions to the building society for ten, twenty or thirty years. By the time he becomes an old man he has cleared off the mortgage, and more than half the value of the house has passed into the pockets of the landlord.

You have got cases in London here. There is the famous Gorringe case. In that case advantage was taken of the fact that a man has built up a great business, and they say: Here you are, you have built up a great business, you cannot take it away; you cannot move to other premises because your trade and goodwill are here; your lease is coming to an end, and we decline to renew it except on the most oppressive terms.

The Gorringe case is a very famous case. It was the case of the Duke of Westminster. Oh, these dukes, how they harass us! Mr Gorringe had got a lease of the premises at a few hundred pounds a year ground rent. He built up a great business there. He was a very able business man, and when the end of the lease came he went to the Duke of Westminster, and he said: Will you renew my lease? I want to carry on my business here. He said: Oh yes, I will; but I will do it on condition than the few hundreds a year you pay for ground rent shall in the future be £4,000 a year. In addition to that he had to pay a fine - a fine, mind you! - of £50,000, and he had to build up huge premises at enormous expense according to plans submitted to the Duke of Westminster. All I can say to this - if it is confiscation and robbery for us to say to that duke, being in need of money for public purposes, we will take 10 per cent. of all you have got, for that purpose, what would you call his taking nine-tenths from Mr Gorringe?

These are the cases we have got to deal with. Look at all this leasehold system. This system - it is the system I am attacking, not individuals - is not business, it is blackmail. I have no doubt some of you have taken the trouble to peruse some of these leases, and they are really worth reading, and I will guarantee that if you circulate copies of some of these building and mining leases at Tariff Reform meetings, and if you can get workmen at those meetings and the business men to read them, they will come away sadder but much wiser men. What are they? Ground rent is a part of it - fines, fees; you are to make no alteration without somebody's consent. Who is that somebody? It is the agent of the landlord. A fee to him. You must submit the plans to the landlords architect and get his consent. There is a fee to him. There is a fee to the surveyor; and then, of course, you cannot keep the lawyer out - he always comes in. And a fee to him. Well, that is the system, and the landlords come to us in the House of Commons and they say: If you go on taxing reversions we will grant no more leases? Is not that horrible? No more leases! No more kindly landlords with all their retinue of good fairies - agents, surveyors, lawyers - ready always to receive ground rents, fees, premiums, fines, reversions - no more, never again! They will not do it. We cannot persuade them. They wont have it. The landlord has threatened us that if we proceed with the Budget he will take his sack clean away from the hopper, and the grain which we are all grinding our best to fill his sack will go into our own. Oh, I cannot believe it.

There is a limit even to the wrath of outraged landlords. We must really appease them; we must offer up some sacrifice to them. Suppose we offer the House of Lords to them? Well, you seem rather to agree with that. I will make the suggestion to them.

I say their day of reckoning is at hand

Now, unless I am wearying you, I have just one other land tax, and that is a tax on royalties. The landlords are receiving eight millions a year by way of royalties.

What for? They never deposited the coal there. It was not they who planted these great granite rocks in Wales, who laid the foundations of the mountains.

Was it the landlord? And yet he, by some divine right, demands as his toll - for merely the right for men to risk their lives in hewing these rocks - eight millions a year. Take any coalfield. I went down to a coalfield the other day, and they pointed out to me many collieries there. They said: 'You see that colliery there. The first man who went there spent a quarter of a million in sinking shafts, in driving mains and levels. He never got coal, and he lost his quarter of a million. The second man who came spent 100,000 - and he failed. The third man came along, and he got the coal'. What was the landlord doing in the meantime. The first man failed; but the landlord got his royalty, the landlord got his dead-rent - and a very good name for it. The second man failed, but the landlord got his royalty.

These capitalists put their money in, and I said: 'When the cash failed what did the landlord put in?' He simply put in the bailiffs. The capitalist risks, at any rate, the whole of his money; the engineer puts his brains in; the miner risks his life.

I was telling you I went down a coalmine the other day. We sank into a pit half a mile deep. We then walked underneath the mountain, and we did about three-quarters of a mile with rock and shale above us. The earth seemed to be straining - around us and above us - to crush us in.

You could see the pit-props bent and twisted and sundered until you saw their fibres split in resisting the pressure. Sometimes they give way, and then there is mutilation and death. Often a spark ignites, the whole pit is deluged in fire, and the breath of life is scorched out of hundreds of breasts by the consuming flame. In the very next colliery to the one I descended just a few years ago three hundred people lost their lives in that way. And yet when the Prime Minister and I knock at the door of these great landlords, and say to them: 'Here, you know these poor fellows who have been digging up royalties at the risk of their lives, some of them are old, they have survived the perils of their trade, they are broken, they can earn no more. Wont you give them something towards keeping them out of the workhouse?' they scowl at us, and we say: 'Only a hapenny, just a copper'. They say: 'You thieves!' and they turn their dogs on to us, and you can hear their bark every morning. If this is an indication of the view taken by these great landlords of their responsibility to the people who at the risk of life create their wealth, then I say their day of reckoning is at hand.

The other day at the great Tory meeting held at the Cannon Street Hotel they had blazoned on the walls, 'We protest against the Budget in the name of democracy, liberty and justice'. Where does the democracy come in in this landed system? Where is the liberty in our leasehold system? Where is the seat of justice in all these transactions?

The ownership of land is not merely an enjoyment, it is a stewardship

I claim that the tax we impose on land is fair, is just and is moderate. They go on threatening that if we proceed, they will cut down their benefactions and discharge labour. What kind of labour? What is the labour they are going to choose for dismissal? Are they going to threaten to devastate rural England by feeding and dressing themselves? Are they going to reduce their gamekeepers? Ah, that would be sad! The agricultural labourer and the farmer might then have some part of the game which they fatten with their labour. But what would happen to you in the season? No week-end shooting with the Duke of Norfolk or anyone.

But that is not the kind of labour they are going to cut down. They are going to cut down productive labour - their builders and their gardeners - and they are going to ruin their property so that it shall not be taxed.

All I can say is this - the ownership of land is not merely an enjoyment, it is a stewardship. It has been reckoned as such in the past; and if they cease to discharge their functions, the security and defence of the country, looking after the broken in their villages and in their neighbourhoods then these functions which are part of the traditional duties attached to the ownership of land, and which have given to it its title - if they cease to discharge those functions, the time will come to reconsider the conditions under which the land is held in this country.

No country, however rich, can permanently afford to have quartered upon its revenue a class which declines to do the duty which it was called upon to perform since the beginning. And, therefore, it is one of the prime duties of statesmanship to investigate those conditions. But I do not believe it. They have threatened and menaced like that before. They have seen it is not to their interest to carry out these futile menaces. They are not protesting against paying their fair share of taxation of the land, and they are doing so by saying: 'You are burdening industry; you are putting burdens upon the people which they cannot bear'. Ah! They are not thinking of themselves. Noble souls! It is not the great dukes they are feeling for, it is the market gardener, it is the builder; and it was, until recently, the smallholder. In every debate in the House of Commons they said: 'We are not worrying for ourselves. We can afford it without broad acres; but just think of the little man who has only got a few acres'. And we were so very impressed with this tearful appeal that at last we said: We will leave him out. And I almost expected to see Mr Pretyman jump over the table when I said it, fall on my neck and embrace me. Instead of that he stiffened up, his face wreathed with anger, and he said: 'The Budget is more unjust than ever'.

We are placing burdens on the broadest shoulders. Why should I put burdens on the people? I am one of the children of the people. I was brought up amongst them. I know their trials; and God forbid that I should add one grain of trouble to the anxieties which they bear with such patience and fortitude. When the Prime Minister did me the honour of inviting me to take charge of the National Exchequer at a time of great difficulty, I made up my mind, in framing the Budget which was in front of me, that at any rate no cupboard should be barer, no lot would be harder. By that test I challenge them to judge the Budget.

Frederick Edwin Smith: 'I myself am a perfectly unrepentant member of the Tariff Reform League', maiden speech - 1906

11 March 1906, House of Commons, United Kingdom

FE Smith was a Conservative elected in Tory defeat by PM Lloyd George. He targeted the PM in this famous and eloquent speech, for exaggerating what would happen if tariffs were removed (slavery returning to Wales)

Mr. Speaker, sir,

in whatever section of the House hon. members may sit, or however profoundly they may differ from the economic views which underlie the remarks of the hon. member for Blackburn [Mr. Snowden], they will all, at least, desire to join in a tribute to the sincerity and ability displayed in the speech he has just delivered. Speaking for myself, I confess that I have been struck by the admissions which have been made by those hon. members who have spoken in favor of this resolution.

I venture to ask hon. members on the ministerial side, at the height of their triumph, to consider for a moment what is implicitly involved in their concessions. The hon. member for Blackburn has just told the House that sixty years of free trade have absolutely failed to ameliorate the condition of the working classes. That is a statement upon which the Opposition have reached some degree of agreement with the hon. member.

Where, however, we part company with him, is not upon the great and growing importance of still further ameliorating the condition of the working classes, but upon the feasibility of effectively assisting thirteen million people on the verge of starvation by a revision of railway rates, by unexplained dealings with mine-owners, or by loose, mischievous, and predatory proposals affecting those who happen to own land.

The hon. gentleman spoke with bitterness almost with contempt of persons possessing large incomes. I would entreat hon. members to make quite sure that they have cleared their minds of cant upon this question. When I hear vague and general proposals put forward at the expense of large incomes, without any precise explanation as to the principle upon which, or the extent to which those incomes are to be appropriated or tapped for the service of those who are less fortunate, I should like to make an elementary observation, that there are very few members in this House, whether in Opposition or on the benches opposite or below the gangway, whose principal business occupation it is not to provide themselves with as large an income as they honestly can.

If there is one profession to which that charge cannot be applied, it is, perhaps, the profession to which I myself belong. I, therefore, attach little importance to disparaging observations upon the rich, either from the hon. gentleman or from anyone else. Nor do I believe that the policy of unduly burdening the rich will be found on a just consideration of the action and interaction of economic forces to be of real advantage to the poor. Labour, after all, is immobile, whereas capital is always fugitive.

What other remedies has the hon. gentleman for the evils which he so clearly appreciates? He and his friends are alike barren in suggestion. Unemployment yearly grows chronic over a larger area, while a Parliament of Free Importers celebrates in academic resolutions the economic system which has depopulated rural England, has filled the emigrant steamers with fugitives from these happy shores, and has aggravated the evils of the most revolting slums in Christendom.

The progress of tonight's debate makes one profoundly conscious of the constructive shortcomings of the Cobdenism of today. I myself am a perfectly unrepentant member of the Tariff Reform League. I do not know how many members of the league there may be in the House; it may be that a division would show that they are not more numerous than the representatives of the Liberal League. I have, at least, the satisfaction of reflecting that, if tariff reform is found not to be a winning horse, I have not necessarily compromised my political future. I have in hon. and right hon. gentlemen opposite an admirable example of how to cut the painter of a similar league, with the maximum of political advancement, and the minimum of fidelity to a founder. Such a model of chivalrous loyalty is of great value to a young member of Parliament.

I suppose the resolution has been charitably designed to call attention to differences existing or supposed to exist in the Opposition. I should have thought that we might have looked to hon. gentlemen opposite for a little more charity. Hon. gentlemen opposite have had analogous difficulties. The question of when a tariff becomes protective is no doubt difficult, but not more so than the conundrum "When is a slave not a slave?" or the problem when, if ever, preferential treatment should be given to Roman Catholic schools.

All great political parties have skeletons in the cupboard, some with manacles on, and some with only their hands behind their backs. The quarrel I have with hon. gentlemen opposite is that they show an astonishing indelicacy in attempting to drag our skeleton into the open. Not satisfied with tomahawking our colleagues in the country, they ask the scanty remnant in the House to join in the scalp dance.

I do not think we can complain of the tone of a single speech which has been made from the opposite side of the House. We were particularly pleased with the remarks which fell from the hon. member for East Toxteth [Mr. Austin Taylor], for he entered the House, not like his new colleagues, on the crest of the wave, but rather by means of an opportune dive. Every one in the House will appreciate his presence, because there can be no greater compliment paid to the House by a member, than that he should be in our midst, when his heart is far away, and it must be clear to all who know the hon. member's scrupulous sense of honor, that his desire must be at the present moment to be amongst his constituents, who are understood to be at least as anxious to meet him.

The resolution before the House consists of two parts. In the first, we are asked to recognize the merits of what is described on an obscure prescriptive principle as free trade, and, in the second, we are invited to register the proposition that the country gave an unqualified verdict in its favor.

The word "unqualified" is in itself ambiguous, and may have more than one meaning. If we say that a man is an unqualified slave, we mean that his condition can be honestly described as completely servile, and not, merely, as semi-servile. If, on the other hand, we say that a man is an unqualified medical practitioner, or an unqualified Under-Secretary, we mean that he is not entitled to any particular respect, because he has not passed through the normal period of training, or preparation. It is, on the whole, probable that the word is used in the first sense in the present motion.

But, perhaps, it is necessary to distinguish even further. When hon. gentlemen opposite are successful at the polls, it is probably used in the first sense. In the comparatively few cases in which I and my friends were successful, it is used in the second. Birmingham, under circumstances which will never be effaced from the memory of hon. gentlemen, on whichever side of the House they sit, displayed the rare and beautiful quality of political constancy, and voted in all its divisions for tariff reform. [Laughter.] The result is sneered at, in the spirit of the laughter which we have just heard, as a triumph for Tammanyism, or, more profoundly analyzed by an eminent Nonconformist divine, as an instance of that mysterious dispensation, which occasionally permits the ungodly to triumph.

Hon. gentlemen opposite are, in fact, very much more successful controversialists than hon. members on this side of the House. It is far easier, if one is a master of scholarly irony, and of a charming literary style, to describe protection as a "stinking rotten carcass" than to discuss scientifically whether certain limited proposals are likely to prove protective in their incidence. It is far easier, if one has a strong stomach, to suggest to simple rustics, as the President of the Board of Trade [Mr. Lloyd-George] did, that, if the Tories came into power, they would introduce slavery on the hills of Wales.

Mr. Lloyd-George: I did not say that.

Mr. F.E. Smith: The right hon. gentleman would, no doubt, be extremely anxious to forget it, if he could. But, anticipating a temporary lapse of memory, I have in my hand the Manchester Guardian of January 16, 1906, which contains a report of his speech. The right hon. gentleman said:

"What would they say to introducing Chinamen at 1s. a day into the Welsh quarries? Slavery on the hills of Wales! Heaven forgive me for the suggestion!"

I have no means of judging how Heaven will deal with persons, who think it decent to make such suggestions. The distinction drawn by the right hon. gentleman is more worthy of the county court than of the Treasury Bench. I express a doubt whether any honest politician will ever acquit the right hon. gentleman of having deliberately given the impression to those he thus addressed that, if the Conservative party were returned, the hills of Wales would be polluted by conditions of industrial slavery.

The alternative construction is that the right hon. gentleman thought it worth his while, in addressing ignorant men [Cries of " No"] — In relation to the right hon. gentleman they are ignorant. Is that disputed? — to put before ignorant men an abstract and academic statement as to Chinese labor on the hills of Wales. If he did not mean his hearers to draw the false but natural inference, why make any reference to Chinese slavery as a conceivable prospect on the hills of Wales?

Was even Manchester won on the free trade issue? [Cries of " Yes."] I hear hon. gentlemen opposite say "Yes." I think they must be from the south of England. If Manchester was won on the free trade issue, perhaps hon. gentlemen will explain why repeated meetings were devoted to the less effective and attractive cry, and why specialist speakers like Mr. Creswell were brought down to discourse to the electors on the evils of Chinese slavery.

Mr. Speaker, I am not unaware that, owing to the eccentricities of municipal geography, Salford is not, technically, a part of Manchester, but a Salford member is near enough to wear the green turban of a pilgrimage to Cobden's Mecca. The hon. member for Salford [Mr. Hilaire Belloc] has stated that he was returned to the House, pledged to urge insistently on the Government, which profited by a false cry, the immediate repatriation of the coolies now on the Rand. Shall I be told that in that case the electors were giving an unqualified verdict for Cobdenism, or for what is called in this resolution free trade?

I do not think that the hon. and learned gentleman, who fought so strenuously in East Manchester [Mr. T. G. Horridge], will get up and tell the House that in his constituency the verdict was an unqualified one for free trade. I have some choice specimens of the bread that he threw on the waters in order, I suppose, to elicit this unqualified verdict.

He is reported, in the Manchester Guardian of 13th January, to have said that the Chinese had not been the means of bringing one single piece of white labor to South Africa. The hon. and learned gentleman appears to think that white labor is introduced in slabs. He said:

"You are voting, if you vote for Mr. Balfour, for the exclusion of white labor from South Africa"

— not for Cobdenism. The hon. gentleman continued: "Where was that thing going to stop?"

Mr. Speaker, this is precisely what we should like to know today. "Were they going to have Chinamen working in the mills at Bradford? Let the people of this division show by their votes" — what? Their devotion to free imports? No — "That they would have none of this wretched coolie labor in South Africa, and strike a blow for freedom tomorrow at the polls."

There is an interesting point of analogy between the hon. and learned gentleman and the "wretched coolies," of whom he has so low an opinion. Today he is in, and they are in, and it rather looks as if they are going to remain in as long as he and his friends.

It was in this way that the poorer districts of Manchester were captured — Cobden's Manchester. Did the hon. member, the Under-Secretary for the Colonies [Mr. Winston Churchill], use his great and growing local influence on behalf of what in his heart and conscience he knew to be the truth? I say "on behalf of what he knew to be the truth," because the hon. member is reported in the Manchester Guardian, as having said on June 12, 1903, that he was quite sure that supplies of native or Chinese labor would have to be obtained, and ought to be obtained for the mines in the interests of South Africa as a whole.

I will not weary the House with the whole of the Under-Secretary's peroration. I rather think it has been at the disposal of both parties in the House before undertaking a provincial tour.

Mr. Speaker, it is easy for the Under-Secretary to come to the House and state in the debate on the Address that he attempted to confine the issue at the election to the single point of Cobdenism, to the single merits of free trade, and that he had therefore no responsibility for an incendiary campaign. To that I reply, proximus ucalegon ardebat, which I may venture to construe proximus, in an adjacent constituency; ucalegon, the hon. and learned gentleman [Mr. T. G. Horridge]; ardebat, was letting off Chinese crackers.

The Under-Secretary did not then explain that the coolie processions, which his learned friend was so forward in organizing, were merely contributions to the problem of the unemployed, or that slavery was a terminological inexactitude. He profited by the storm of generous anger which these falsehoods, being believed, excited among the Lancashire democracy. He took what he could get, and thanked God for it. Mr. Speaker, the role of the receiver of stolen reputations is rather less respectable in the eyes of the man of spirit, than that of the principal thief.

I must, however, in candor admit that the question of cheap food was brought forward in many constituencies with great persistency and ingenuity. The hon. member for North Paddington [Mr. Chiozza Money], with an infinitely just appreciation of his own controversial limitations, relied chiefly on an intermittent exhibition of horse sausages as a witty, graceful, and truthful sally at the expense of the great German nation.

I do not understand what the Secretary of State for War means by saying that the Liberal Party has no ideas. The Liberal League always was a drag upon the holy wheel of progress. In Wales, apparently, they like it strong, and the President of the Board of Trade [Mr. Lloyd-George] informed one favored audience how large a part horse-flesh plays in the simple diet of the German home. The same speaker is never tired of maintaining that protection has tainted and corrupted German public life. I understand that any trade negotiations which may become necessary with Germany must be conducted through the right hon. gentleman. I am not sanguine of the outcome. If you have a difficult business transaction to carry through with a competitor, a prudent reflection would perhaps suggest that it is unwise to describe him publicly as a corrupt scoundrel, subsisting principally upon the flesh of horses.

I do not suppose that, now the fight is over, now that the strategy has been so brilliantly successful, away from the license of the platform, in the House, where their statements can be met and dealt with, hon. gentlemen will deny that the immediate effect of a 2s. duty on corn will be an illimitable development of colonial acreage suitable for the growth of wheat. [Cries of " Oh, oh," and loud derisive laughter.] I am astonished to hear sounds of derisive dissent, for I rather thought that at the time when Lord Rosebery, from whom I was quoting with verbal precision, made that prediction to frighten the English farmer from tariff reform, hon. gentlemen were in the same tabernacle, or furrow, or whatever was the momentary rendezvous of the Liberal party.

At the moment, hon. gentlemen will recollect, the other ship looked like sinking; there was a temporary slump in the "methods of barbarism " section. I venture to ask hon. gentlemen, to tell us in the candor of victory, whether any one really doubts that Canada would, in a few years, be able, under judicious stimulation, to supply the whole English consumption of wheat? [Cries of " No, no."] Sir Wilfrid Laurier says it can, and hon. gentlemen say it cannot. Perhaps the Under-Secretary for the Colonies [Mr. Winston Churchill], whom I am sorry not to see in his place, will put Sir Wilfrid Laurier on the black list with Lord Milner, [Mr. Churchill had recently stated in the House of Commons that he did not feel called upon to protect Lord Milner in the future.] and refuse to protect him any longer.

Does the House recollect La Fontaine's insect, the species is immaterial, which expired under the impression that it had afforded a lifelong protection to the lion, in whose carcass its life was spent?

There is hardly a Canadian statesman who does not go further than Sir Wilfrid Laurier in the direction of tariff reform. Earlier in the debate some reference was made to Mr. Fisher, and I desire to speak of Mr. Fisher's views and ability with great respect; it is not necessary to vilify any colonial politician with whom you disagree. But, in Canada, Mr. Fisher and Mr. Goldwin Smith are in a minority of two, and Canada has almost reached the stage one day, I hope, to be attained in England of exhibiting Free Importers in her museums.

An official report, ordered by the United States Government in 1902, found the district contributory to Winnipeg capable, within the lives of persons still living, of supplying enough wheat to provide for the consumption of the world. If this be true, or half true, what becomes of the nightmare of apprehension, which has made hon. gentlemen opposite so infinitely tedious for the last few years? If an illimitable supply of Canadian corn is coming in untaxed, what becomes of the little loaf? Once again, I recognize in hon. gentlemen opposite our electioneering masters, and I compliment them, if not on an unqualified verdict, at any rate, upon an unqualified inexactitude.

Some hon. gentleman ventured upon a more ambitious line of argument, and, in doing so, permanently enriched the economic knowledge of the country. We were told that it is not a disadvantage, but rather an advantage, that English factories should be removed abroad. Perhaps some consistent logician will shortly introduce a Bill offering bounties to capitalists who remove their works abroad. Let us by all means drive from the country everybody who has work to give, and then wave banners, like the hon. member for Merthyr Tydvil [Mr. Keir Hardie], in the "Right to Work Committee."

A fortnight ago hon. gentlemen opposite, calling in aid every resource of pathos, indulged in beautiful sentiments about the feeding of starving children. If the matter had been pressed to a division, I should have voted with them, but I should have done so without prejudice to my convictions as to the economic system which gave rise to the necessity. I should like to know how hon. gentlemen opposite explain the growing poverty of the poor. [Ministerial cries of " The War."]

Since this House of Commons met, we have heard a great deal about the war. I would suggest to hon. gentlemen, as a humble admirer of their methods, that, if they wish for targets in that matter, they ought to aim, not at the Opposition Benches, but at right hon. gentlemen who sit on the Front Government Bench.

Hon. gentle men opposite should remember that the present Secretary of State for War [Mr. Haldane] justly observed that the Boers waged the war, not only with the object of maintaining their independence, but also to undermine our authority in South Africa. And the present Attorney-General [Sir John Lawson Walton] said that the war could be shown to be as just, as it was inevitable, and to have been defensible on the grounds of freedom.

The circumstances of which you complain were anterior to the war. While the only panacea which hon. gentlemen opposite can suggest is the employment of broken-down artisans in planting trees, and constructing dams against the encroachment of the sea, the Unionist party need not be discouraged by their reverses at the polls. We will say of the goddess who presides over the polls, as Dryden said of Fortune in general:

I can enjoy her while she's kind;
But when she dances in the wind,
And shakes her wings, and will not stay,
I puff the prostitute away.

Was the verdict unqualified, having regard to the aggregate number of votes polled on behalf of Liberal members? The votes polled at the last election for Liberal, Labour, and Nationalist candidates were 3,300,000, while those polled for tariff reform candidates and other gentlemen sitting around me were 2,500,000. [Cries of " No ! Not true ! "] I gather that it is suggested that my figures are wrong. [Cries of " Yes."] They very probably are. I took them from the Liberal Magazine.

Perhaps the Minister of Education [Mr. Birrell, formerly Chairman of the Liberal Publications Department] was responsible for them, before he gave up the hecatomb line of business for the Christian toleration and charity department. I venture to suggest to hon. gentlemen opposite, that the figures I have quoted, so far as they are accurate, are not altogether discouraging to those who, for the first time after so many years of blind dogma, have challenged the verdict of the country on the issue of tariff reform.

What would hon. gentlemen who represent Ireland say, if it was suggested that they were Cobdenites? Will one of them get up to say that Cobdenism has brought prosperity or success to Ireland, or to guarantee that a representative Irish Parliament would not introduce a general tariff on foreign manufactured articles? The jury who gave this unqualified verdict are unaccountably silent. The spectacle of the Cobdenite hen cackling over a protectionist duckling of her own hatching in Ireland would add a partially compensating element of humor even to the prospect of Home Rule.

The Irish, and I may add, the Indian case for tariff reform were both once and for all conceded by the " infant community " admission of Adam Smith. Why do we force upon India and Ireland alike a system, of which every honest man knows that whether it be good or bad for us it denies to them the right to develop and mature their nascent industries upon the lines in which they themselves most earnestly believe, and in which every country in the world except Great Britain believes?

The answer is as short, as it is discreditable. We perpetuate this tyranny, in order that our Indian and Irish fellow-subjects may be forced to buy from our manufacturers articles which they would otherwise attempt to manufacture for themselves. In other words, we perpetuate in these two cases a compulsory and unilateral trade preference demonstrably the fruit of selfishness at the sacrifice of a voluntary and bilateral preference, based deep and strong upon mutual interest and mutual affection.

I have heard the majority on the other side of the House described as the pure fruit of the Cobdenite tree. I should rather say that they were begotten by Chinese slavery out of passive resistance, by a rogue sire out of a dam that roared. I read a short time ago that the Free Church Council claimed among its members as many as two hundred of hon. gentlemen opposite. [Ministerial cries of " Oh ! "]

The Free Church Council gave thanks publicly for the fact that Providence had inspired the electors with the desire and the discrimination to vote on the right side.

Mr. Speaker, I do not, more than another man, mind being cheated at cards. But I find it a little nauseating if my opponent then proceeds to ascribe his success to the favor of the Most High. What the future of this Parliament has in store for right hon. and hon. gentlemen opposite I do not know, but I hear that the Government propose to deny to the Colonial Conference of 1907 free discussion on the subject which the House is now debating, so as to prevent the statement of unpalatable truths.

I know that I am the insignificant representative of an insignificant numerical minority in this House, but I venture to warn the Government that the people of this country will neither forget nor forgive a party which, in the heyday of its triumph, denies to the infant Parliament of the Empire one jot or tittle of that ancient liberty of speech, which our predecessors in this House vindicated for themselves at the point of the sword.

David Lloyd George: 'The Road Hog of Europe' - 1914

19 September 1914, London, United Kingdom

I have come here this afternoon to talk to my fellow countrymen about this great war and the part we ought to take in it. I feel my task is easier after we have been listening to the greatest battle-song in the world.

There is no man in this room who has always regarded the prospects of engaging in a great war with greater reluctance, with greater repugnance, than I have done throughout the whole of my political life. There is no man, either inside or outside of this room, more convinced that we could not have avoided it without national dishonour. I am fully alive to the fact that whenever a nation has been engaged in any war she has always invoked the sacred name of honour. Many a crime has been committed in its name; there are some crimes being committed now. But, all the same, national honour is a reality, and any nation that disregards it is doomed.

Why is our honour as a country involved in this war? Because, in the first place, we are bound in an honourable obligation to defend the independence, the liberty, the integrity of a small neighbour that has lived peaceably, but she could not have compelled us, because she was weak. The man who declines to discharge his debt because his creditor is too poor to enforce it is a blackguard. We entered into this treaty, a solemn treaty, a full treaty, to defend Belgium and her integrity. Our signatures are attached to the document. Our signatures do not stand alone there. This was not the only country to defend the integrity of Belgium. Russia, France, Austria, and Prussia--they are all there. Why did they not perform the obligation? It is suggested that if we quote this treaty it is purely an excuse on our part. It is our low craft and cunning, just to cloak our jealousy of a superior civilization we are attempting to destroy. Our answer is the action we took in 1870. What was that? Mr. Gladstone was then Prime Minister. Lord Granville, I think, was then Foreign Secretary. I have never heard it laid to their charge that they were ever jingo.

What did they do in 1870? That Treaty Bond was this: We called upon the belligerent Powers to respect that treaty. We called upon France; we called upon Germany. At that time, bear in mind, the greatest danger to Belgium came from France and not from Germany. We intervened to protect Belgium against France exactly as we are doing now to protect her against Germany. We are proceeding exactly in the same way. We invited both the belligerent Powers to state that they had no intention of violating Belgian territory. What was the answer given by Bismarck? He said it was superfluous to ask Prussia such a question in view of the treaties in force. France gave a similar answer. We received the thanks at that time from the Belgian people for our intervention in a very remarkable document. This is the document addressed by the municipality of Brussels to Queen Victoria after that intervention:

The great and noble people over whose destinies you preside have just given a further proof of its benevolent sentiments towards this country. The voice of the English nation has been heard above the din of arms. It has asserted the principles of justice and right. Next to the unalterable attachment of the Belgian people to their independence, the strongest sentiment which fills their hearts is that of an imperishable gratitude to the people of Great Britain.

That was in 1870. Mark what follows.

Three or four days after that document of thanks the French Army was wedged up against the Belgian frontier. Every means of escape was shut up by a ring of flame from Prussian cannon. There was one way of escape. What was that? By violating the neutrality of Belgium. What did they do? The French on that occasion preferred ruin, humiliation, to the breaking of their bond. The French Emperor, French Marshals, 100,000 gallant Frenchmen in arms preferred to be carried captive to the strange land of their enemy rather than dishonour the name of their country. It was the last French Army defeat. Had they violated Belgian neutrality the whole history of that war would have been changed. And yet it was the interest of France to break the treaty. She did not do it.

It is now the interest of Prussia to break the treaty, and she has done it. Well, why? She avowed it with cynical contempt for every principle of justice. She says treaties only bind you when it is to your interest to keep them. 'What is a treaty?' says the German Chancellor. 'A scrap of paper.' Have you any L5 notes about you? I am not calling for them. Have you any of those neat little Treasury L1 notes? If you have, burn them; they are only 'scraps of paper'. What are they made of? Rags. What are they worth? The whole credit of the British Empire. 'Scraps of paper.' I have been dealing with scraps of paper within the last month. It is suddenly found the commerce of the world is coming to a standstill. The machine had stopped. Why? I will tell you. We discovered, many of us for the first time--I do not pretend to say that I do not know much more about the machinery of commerce to-day than I did six weeks ago, and there are a good many men like me--we discovered the machinery of commerce was moved by bills of exchange. I have seen some of them--wretched, crinkled, scrawled over, blotched, frowsy, and yet these wretched little scraps of paper moved great ships, laden with thousands of tons of precious cargo, from one end of the world to the other. What was the motive power behind them? The honour of commercial men.

Treaties are the currency of international statesmanship. Let us be fair. German merchants, German traders had the reputation of being as upright and straightforward as any traders in the world. But if the currency of German commerce is to be debased to the level of her statesmanship, no trader from Shanghai to Valparaiso will ever look at a German signature again. This doctrine of the scrap of paper, this doctrine which is superscribed by Bernhardi, that treaties only bind a nation as long as it is to its interest, goes to the root of public law. It is the straight road to barbarism, just as if you removed the magnetic pole whenever it was in the way of a German cruiser, the whole navigation of the seas would become dangerous, difficult, impossible, and the whole machinery of civilization will break down if this doctrine wins in this war.

We are fighting against barbarism. But there is only one way of putting it right. If there are nations that say they will only respect treaties when it is to their interest to do so, we must make it to their interest to do so for the future. What is their defence? Just look at the interview which took place between our Ambassador and great German officials when their attention was called to this treaty to which they were partners. They said: 'We cannot, help that. Rapidity of action was the great German asset. There is a greater asset for a nation than rapidity of action, and that is--honest dealing.

What are her excuses? She said Belgium was plotting against her, that Belgium was engaged in a great conspiracy with Britain and with France to attack her. Not merely is that not true, but Germany knows it is not true. What is her other excuse? France meant to invade Germany through Belgium. Absolutely untrue. France offered Belgium five army corps to defend her if she was attacked. Belgium said: 'I don't require them. I have got the word of the Kaiser. Shall Caesar send a lie?' All these tales about conspiracy have been fanned up since. The great nation ought to be ashamed, ought to be ashamed to behave like a fraudulent bankrupt perjuring its way with its complications. She has deliberately broken this treaty, and we were in honour bound to stand by it.

Belgium has been treated brutally, how brutally we shall not yet know. We know already too much. What has she done? Did she send an ultimatum to Germany? Did she challenge Germany? Was she preparing to make war on Germany? Had she ever inflicted any wrongs upon Germany which the Kaiser was bound to redress? She was one of the most unoffending little countries in Europe. She was peaceable, industrious, thrifty, hard-working, giving offence to no one; and her cornfields have been trampled down, her villages have been burned to the ground, her art treasures have been destroyed, her men have been slaughtered, yea, and her women and children, too. What had she done? Hundreds of thousands of her people have had their quiet, comfortable little homes burned to the dust, and are wandering homeless in their own land. What is their crime? Their crime was that they trusted to the word of a Prussian King. I don't know what the Kaiser hopes to achieve by this war. I have a shrewd idea of what he will get, but one thing is made certain, that no nation in future will ever commit that crime again.

I am not going to enter into these tales. Many of them are untrue; war is a grim, ghastly business at best, and I am not going to say that all that has been said in the way of tales of outrage is true. I will go beyond that, and say that if you turn two millions of men forced, conscripted, and compelled and driven into the field, you will certainly get among them a certain number of men who will do things that the nation itself will be ashamed of. I am not depending on them. It is enough for me to have the story which the Germans themselves avow, admit, defend, proclaim. The burning and massacring, the shooting down of harmless people--why? Because, according to the Germans, they fired on German soldiers. What business had German soldiers there at all? Belgium was acting in pursuance of a most sacred right, the right to defend your own home.

But they were not in uniform when they shot. If a burglar broke into the Kaiser's Palace at Potsdam, destroyed his furniture, shot down his servants, ruined his art treasures, especially those he made himself, burned his precious manuscripts, do you think he would wait until he got into uniform before he shot him down? They were dealing with those who had broken into their households. But their perfidy has already failed. They entered Belgium to save time. The time has gone. They have not gained time, but they have lost their good name.

But Belgium was not the only little nation that has been attacked in this war, and I make no excuse for referring to the case of the other little nation--the case of Servia. The history of Servia is not unblotted. What history in the category of nations is unblotted? The first nation that is without sin, let her cast a stone at Servia. A nation trained in a horrible school, but she won her freedom with her tenacious valour, and she has maintained it by the same courage. If any Servians were mixed up in the assassination of the Grand Duke they ought to be punished. Servia admits that; the Servian Government had nothing to do with it. Not even Austria claimed that. The Servian Prime Minister is one of the most capable and honoured men in Europe.

Servia was willing to punish any one of her subjects who had been proved to have any complicity in that assassination. What more could you expect? What were the Austrian demands? Servia sympathized with her fellow countrymen in Bosnia. That was one of her crimes. She must do so no more. Her newspapers were saying nasty things about Austria. They must do so no longer. That is the Austrian spirit. You had it in Zabern. How dare you criticize a Customs official? And if you laugh it is a capital offence. The colonel threatened to shoot them if they repeated it.

Servian newspapers must not criticize Austria. I wonder what would have happened had we taken the same line about German newspapers. Servia said: 'Very well, we will give orders to the newspapers that they must not criticize Austria in future, neither Austria, nor Hungary, nor anything that is theirs.' Who can doubt the valour of Servia, when she undertook to tackle her newspaper editors? She promised not to sympathize with Bosnia, promised to write no critical articles about Austria. She would have no public meetings at which anything unkind was said about Austria.

That was not enough. She must dismiss from her Army officers whom Austria should subsequently name. But these officers had just emerged from a war where they were adding lustre to the Servian arms--gallant, brave, efficient. I wonder whether it was their guilt or their efficiency that prompted Austria's action. But, mark, the officers were not named. Servia was to undertake in advance to dismiss them from the Army; the names to be sent on subsequently. Can you name a country in the world that would have stood that?

Supposing Austria or Germany had issued an ultimatum of that kind to this country. 'You must dismiss from your Army and from your Navy all those officers whom we shall subsequently name!' Well, I think I could name them now. Lord Kitchener would go; Sir John French would be sent about his business; General Smith-Dorrien would be no more; and I am sure that Sir John Jellicoe would go. And there is another gallant old warrior who would go--Lord Roberts.

It was a difficult situation. Here was a demand made upon her by a great military Power who could put five or six men in the field for every one she could; and that Power supported by the greatest military Power in the world. How did Servia behave? It is not what happens to you in life that matters; it is the way in which you face it. And Servia faced the situation with dignity. She said to Austria. 'If any officers of mine have been guilty and are proved to be guilty, I will dismiss them.' Austria said, 'That is not good enough for me.' It was not guilt she was after, but capacity.

Then came Russia's turn. Russia has a special regard for Servia. She has a special interest in Servia. Russians have shed their blood for Servian independence many a time. Servia is a member of her family, and she cannot see Servia maltreated. Austria knew that. Germany knew that, and Germany turned round to Russia and said: 'Here, I insist that you shall stand by with your arms folded whilst Austria is strangling to death your little brother.' What answer did the Russian Slav give? He gave the only answer that becomes a man. He turned to Austria and said: 'You lay hands on that little fellow and I will tear your ramshackle empire limb from limb.' And he is doing it.

That is the story of the little nations. The world owes much to little nations--and to little men. This theory of bigness--you must have a big empire and a big nation, and a big man--well, long legs have their advantage in a retreat. Frederick the Great chose his warriors for their height, and that tradition has become a policy in Germany. Germany applies that ideal to nations; she will only allow six-feet-two nations to stand in the ranks. But all the world owes much to the little five feet high nations. The greatest art of the world was the work of little nations. The most enduring literature of the world came from little nations. The greatest literature of England came from her when she was a nation of the size of Belgium fighting a great Empire. The heroic deeds that thrill humanity through generations were the deeds of little nations fighting for their freedom. Ah, yes, and the salvation of mankind came through a little nation. God has chosen little nations as the vessels by which He carries the choicest wines to the lips of humanity, to rejoice their hearts, to exalt their vision, to stimulate and to strengthen their faith; and if we had stood by when two little nations were being crushed and broken by the brutal hands of barbarism our shame would have rung down the everlasting ages.

But Germany insists that this is an attack by a low civilization upon a higher. Well, as a matter of fact, the attack was begun by the civilization which calls itself the higher one. Now, I am no apologist for Russia. She has perpetrated deeds of which I have no doubt her best sons are ashamed.

But what Empire has not? And Germany is the last Empire to point the finger of reproach at Russia. But Russia has made sacrifices for freedom--great sacrifices. You remember the cry of Bulgaria when she was torn by the most insensate tyranny that Europe has ever seen. Who listened to the cry? The only answer of the higher civilization was that the liberty of Bulgarian peasants was not worth the life of a single Pomeranian soldier. But the rude barbarians of the North--they sent their sons by the thousands to die for Bulgarian freedom.

What about England? You go to Greece, the Netherlands, Italy, Germany, and France, and all these lands, gentlemen, could point out to you places where the sons of Britain have died for the freedom of these countries. France has made sacrifices for the freedom of other lands than her own. Can you name a single country in the world for the freedom of which the modern Prussian has ever sacrificed a single life? The test of our faith, the highest standard of civilization is the readiness to sacrifice for others.

I would not say a word about the German people to disparage them. They are a great people; they have great qualities of head, of hand, and of heart. I believe, in spite of recent events, there is as great a store of kindness in the German peasant as in any peasant in the world. But he has been drilled into a false idea of civilization,--efficiency, capability. It is a hard civilization; it is a selfish civilization; it is a material civilization. They could not comprehend the action of Britain at the present moment. They say so. 'France', they say, 'we can understand. She is out for vengeance, she is out for territory--Alsace Lorraine. Russia, she is fighting for mastery, she wants Galicia.' They can understand vengeance, they can understand you fighting for mastery, they can understand you fighting for greed of territory; they cannot understand a great Empire pledging its resources, pledging its might, pledging the lives of its children, pledging its very existence, to protect a little nation that seeks for its defence. God made man in His own image--high of purpose, in the region of the spirit. German civilization would re-create him in the image of a Diesler machine--precise, accurate, powerful, with no room for the soul to operate. That is the 'higher' civilization.

What is their demand? Have you read the Kaiser's speeches? If you have not a copy, I advise you to buy it; they will soon be out of print, and you won't have any more of the same sort again. They are full of the clatter and bluster of German militarists--the mailed fist, the shining armour. Poor old mailed fist--its knuckles are getting a little bruised. Poor shining armour--the shine is being knocked out of it. But there is the same swagger and boastfulness running through the whole of the speeches. You saw that remarkable speech which appeared in the _British Weekly_ this week. It is a very remarkable product, as an illustration of the spirit we have got to fight. It is his speech to his soldiers on the way to the front:--

Remember that the German people are the chosen of God. On me, on me as German Emperor, the Spirit of God has descended. I am His weapon, His sword, and His vizard! Woe to the disobedient! Death to cowards and unbelievers!

There has been nothing like it since the days of Mahomet.

Lunacy is always distressing, but sometimes it is dangerous, and when you get it manifested in the head of the State, and it has become the policy of a great Empire, it is about time when that should be ruthlessly put away. I do not believe he meant all these speeches. It was simply the martial straddle which he had acquired; but there were men around him who meant every word of it. This was their religion. Treaties? They tangled the feet of Germany in her advance. Cut them with the sword. Little nations? They hinder the advance of Germany. Trample them in the mire under the German heel. The Russian Slav? He challenges the supremacy of Germany and Europe. Hurl your legions at him and massacre him. Britain? She is a constant menace to the predominancy of Germany in the world. Wrest the trident out of her hands. Ah! more than that. The new philosophy of Germany is to destroy Christianity. Sickly sentimentalism about sacrifice for others--poor pap for German digestion. We will have a new diet. We will force it on the world. It will be made in Germany. A diet of blood and iron. What remains? Treaties have gone; the honour of nations gone; liberty gone. What is left? Germany--Germany is left--Deutschland uber Alles. That is all that is left.

That is what we are fighting, that claim to predominancy of a civilization, a material one, a hard one, a civilization which if once it rules and sways the world, liberty goes, democracy vanishes, and unless Britain comes to the rescue, and her sons, it will be a dark day for humanity. We are not fighting the German people. The German people are just as much under the heel of this Prussian military caste, and more so, thank God, than any other nation in Europe. It will be a day of rejoicing for the German peasant and artisan and trader when the military caste is broken. You know his pretensions. He gives himself the airs of a demi-god. Walking the pavements --civilians and their wives swept into the gutter; they have no right to stand in the way of the great Prussian junker. Men, women, nations --they have all got to go. He thinks all he has got to say is, 'We are in a hurry.' That is the answer he gave to Belgium. 'Rapidity of action is Germany's greatest asset,' which means 'I am in a hurry. Clear out of my way'.

You know the type of motorist, the terror of the roads, with a 60-h.p.car. He thinks the roads are made for him, and anybody who impedes the action of his car by a single mile is knocked down. The Prussian junker is the road-hog of Europe. Small nationalities in his way hurled to the roadside, bleeding and broken; women and children crushed under the wheels of his cruel car. Britain ordered out of his road. All I can say is this: if the old British spirit is alive in British hearts, that bully will be torn from his seat. Were he to win it would be the greatest catastrophe that has befallen democracy since the days of the Holy Alliance and its ascendancy. They think we cannot beat them. It will not be easy. It will be a long job. It will be a terrible war. But in the end we shall march through terror to triumph. We shall need all our qualities, every quality that Britain and its people possess. Prudence in council, daring in action, tenacity in purpose, courage in defeat, moderation in victory, in all things faith, and we shall win.

It has pleased them to believe and to preach the belief that we are a decadent nation. They proclaim it to the world, through their professors, that we are an unheroic nation skulking behind our mahogany counters, whilst we are egging on more gallant races to their destruction. This is a description given to us in Germany--'a timorous, craven nation, trusting to its fleet.' I think they are beginning to find their mistake out already. And there are half a million of young men of Britain who have already registered their vow to their King that they will cross the seas and hurl that insult against British courage against its perpetrators on the battlefields of France and of Germany. And we want half a million more. And we shall get them.

But Wales must continue doing her duty. That was a great telegram that you, my Lord (the Chairman), read from Glamorgan.[2] I should like to see a Welsh army in the field. I should like to see the race who faced the Normans for hundreds of years in their struggle for freedom, the race that helped to win the battle of Crecy, the race that fought for a generation under Glendower, against the greatest captain in Europe--I should like to see that race give a good taste of its quality in this struggle in Europe; and they are going to do it.

I envy you young people your youth. They have put up the age limit for the Army, but I march, I am sorry to say, a good many years even beyond that. But still our turn will come. It is a great opportunity. It only comes once in many centuries to the children of men. For most generations sacrifice comes in drab weariness of spirit to men. It has come to-day to you; it has come to-day to us all, in the form of the glory and thrill of a great movement for liberty, that impels millions throughout Europe to the same end. It is a great war for the emancipation of Europe from the thraldom of a military caste, which has cast its shadow upon two generations of men, and which has now plunged the world into a welter of bloodshed. Some have already given their lives. There are some who have given more than their own lives. They have given the lives of those who are dear to them. I honour their courage, and may God be their comfort and their strength.

But their reward is at hand. Those who have fallen have consecrated deaths. They have taken their part in the making of a new Europe, a new world. I can see signs of its coming in the glare of the battlefield. The people will gain more by this struggle in all lands than they comprehend at the present moment. It is true they will be rid of the menace to their freedom. But that is not all. There is something infinitely greater and more enduring which is emerging already out of this great conflict; a new patriotism, richer, nobler, more exalted than the old. I see a new recognition amongst all classes, high and low, shedding themselves of selfishness; a new recognition that the honour of a country does not depend merely on the maintenance of its glory in the stricken field, but in protecting its homes from distress as well. It is a new patriotism, it is bringing a new outlook for all classes. A great flood of luxury and of sloth which had submerged the land is receding, and a new Britain is appearing. We can see for the first time the fundamental things that matter in life and that have been obscured from our vision by the tropical growth of prosperity.

May I tell you, in a simple parable, what I think this war is doing for us? I know a valley in North Wales, between the mountains and the sea--a beautiful valley, snug, comfortable, sheltered by the mountains from all the bitter blasts. It was very enervating, and I remember how the boys were in the habit of climbing the hills above the village to have a glimpse of the great mountains in the distance, and to be stimulated and freshened by the breezes which, came from the hill-tops, and by the great spectacle of that great valley.

We have been living in a sheltered valley for generations. We have been too comfortable, too indulgent, many, perhaps, too selfish. And the stern hand of fate has scourged us to an elevation where we can see the great everlasting things that matter for a nation; the great peaks of honour we had forgotten--duty and patriotism clad in glittering white: the great pinnacle of sacrifice pointing like a rugged finger to Heaven. We shall descend into the valleys again, but as long as the men and women of this generation last they will carry in their hearts the image of these great mountain peaks, whose foundations are unshaken though Europe rock and sway in the convulsions of a great war.