other
country in the world, and who, when this Budget is passed, will still
find Great Britain the best country to live in. When I reflect upon
the power and influence that class possesses, upon the general
goodwill with which they are still regarded by their poorer
neighbours, upon the infinite opportunities for pleasure and for
culture which are open to them in this free, prosperous, and orderly
commonwealth, I cannot doubt that they ought to contribute, and I
believe that great numbers of them are willing to contribute, in a
greater degree than heretofore, towards the needs of the navy, for
which they are always clamouring, and for those social reforms upon
which the health and contentment of the whole population depend.

And after all, gentlemen, when we are upon the sorrows of the rich and
the heavy blows that have been struck by this wicked Budget, let us
not forget that this Budget, which is denounced by all the vested
interests in the country and in all the abodes of wealth and power,
after all, draws nearly as much from the taxation of tobacco and
spirits, which are the luxuries of the working classes, who pay their
share with silence and dignity, as it does from those wealthy classes
upon whose behalf such heartrending outcry is made.

I do not think the issue before the country was ever more simple than
it is now. The money must be found; there is no dispute about that.
Both parties are responsible for the expenditure and the obligations
which render new revenue necessary; and, as we know, we have
difficulty in resisting demands which are made upon us by the
Conservative Party for expenditure upon armaments far beyond the
limits which are necessary to maintain adequately the defences of the
country, and which would only be the accompaniment of a sensational
and aggressive policy in foreign and in Colonial affairs. We declare
that the proposals we have put forward are conceived with a desire to
be fair to all and harsh to none. We assert they are conceived with a
desire to secure good laws regulating the conditions by which wealth
may be obtained and a just distribution of the burdens of the State.
We know that the proposals which we have made will yield all the money
that we need for national defence, and that they will yield an
expanding revenue in future years for those great schemes of social
organisation, of national insurance, of agricultural development, and
of the treatment of the problems of poverty