n the prime necessaries of life; whether you shall
put your tax upon the unearned increment on land or upon the daily
bread of labour; whether the policy of constructive social reform on
which we are embarked, and which expands and deepens as we advance,
shall be carried through and given a fair chance, or whether it shall
be brought to a dead stop and all the energies and attention of the
State devoted to Jingo armaments and senseless foreign adventure. And,
lastly, the issue will be whether the British people in the year of
grace 1909 are going to be ruled through a representative Assembly,
elected by six or seven millions of voters, about which almost every
one in the country, man or woman, has a chance of being consulted, or
whether they are going to allow themselves to be dictated to and
domineered over by a minute minority of titled persons, who represent
nobody, who are answerable to nobody, and who only scurry up to London
to vote in their party interests, in their class interests, and in
their own interests.

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

FOOTNOTES:

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

THE BUDGET AND PROPERTY.

ABERNETHY, _October 7, 1909_

(From _The Daily Telegraph_, by permission of the Editor.)

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

There is one contrast between Parties which springs to the eye at
once. One Party has a policy, detailed, definite, declared, actually
in being. The other Party has no poli