e working classes. It is very easy for rich people to preach the
virtues of self-reliance to the poor. It is also very foolish,
because, as a matter of fact, the wealthy, so far from being
self-reliant, are dependent on the constant attention of scores, and
sometimes even hundreds, of persons who are employed in waiting upon
them and ministering to their wants. I think you will agree with me,
on the other hand--knowing what you do of the life of this city and of
the working classes generally--that there are often trials and
misfortunes which come upon working-class families quite beyond any
provision which their utmost unaided industry and courage could secure
for them. Left to themselves, left absolutely to themselves, they must
be smashed to pieces, if any exceptional disaster or accident, like
recurring sickness, like the death or incapacity of the breadwinner,
or prolonged or protracted unemployment, fall upon them.

There is no chance of making people self-reliant by confronting them
with problems and with trials beyond their capacity to surmount. You
do not make a man self-reliant by crushing him under a steam roller.
Nothing in our plans will relieve people from the need of making every
exertion to help themselves, but, on the contrary, we consider that we
shall greatly stimulate their efforts by giving them for the first
time a practical assurance that those efforts will be crowned with
success.

I have now tried to show you that the Budget, and the policy of the
Budget, is the first conscious attempt on the part of the State to
build up a better and a more scientific organisation of society for
the workers of this country, and it will be for you to say--at no very
distant date--whether all this effort for a coherent scheme of social
reconstruction is to be swept away into the region of lost endeavour.

That is the main aspect of the Budget to which I wish to draw your
attention. But there is another significance of the highest importance
which attaches to the Budget. I mean the new attitude of the State
towards wealth. Formerly the only question of the tax-gatherer was,
"How much have you got?" We ask that question still, and there is a
general feeling, recognised as just by all parties, that the rate of
taxation should be greater for large incomes than for small. As to how
much greater, parties are no doubt in dispute. But now a new question
has arisen. We do not only ask to-day, "How much have you got?" we