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go his mackerel or herring. I have never heard that the fish were grateful to that particular species of gull. But I am told that the name of that bird is a word derived from the Greek which literally interpreted means 'swooping robber bird.""

A Renewed
Warning

LORD LANSDOWNE declared that what the people really wanted was not land nationalisation, but "that the transfer of land 7 should be cheap and easy, that it should be as widely distributed as possible, and that those who got possession of a bit of land should hold it, not as tenants from the nation, but as their own property, belonging absolutely to them. That is the ideal of the Party to which I have the honour to belong." If Ministerial notions were allowed to run riot, they would all be taxed out of existence. "We shall find ourselves administered by a horde of officials at Whitehall." Then followed words which should give pause to Ministerial Hotspurs, if there be any.

At this moment, when all these wild projects are in the air, you are going to be asked to sweep away the only bulwark which stands between the country and the will of the House of Commons, which may perhaps no longer represent the will of the people, and which claims the right of passing any legislation which it pleases. I want you clearly to understand the difference between the attitude which we take up-we who believe in the House of Lords-and the attitude of those who put in the extreme claim on behalf of the House of Commons. The one side tells you that any measure, no matter how violent, no matter how little it has been discussed in Parliament, no matter whether it has ever been properly put before the country, must be passed over the heads of the House of Lords if it is sent up two or three times from one House to the other. The House of Lords view was far more moderate. "We recognise that the will of the people of this country must prevail in the end, but what we demand is that the people of this country should be given full and sufficient opportunity of expressing that will, with a full and sufficient knowledge of the subject. That is, I think, not an unreasonable demand, and upon that issue we are ready to try conclusions."

No words could be clearer or more emphatic than this unimpeachable declaration, as courageous as it is sound. It should serve to nerve the weaker brethren, and to convince the country that the House of Lords is not a sham and a fraud, but a real second Chamber, prepared to do its duty by securing the nation an opportunity of

The Dread of

Dissolution

pronouncing judgment on the preposterous projects of a Government and a House of Commons which, according to all available evidence, have long lost the confidence of the electorate. That Ministers are aware of their unpopularity is abundantly demonstrated by their fear of risking by-elections except in the impregnable strongholds of the Celtic fringe or in mining constituencies, peculiarly susceptible to legislative bribery. When we see the Opposition successfully challenged in "wobbly" constituencies, we shall begin to believe in the truth of the legend invented by its author that the Budget is popular with the masses; not that it would last, as it must painfully aggravate unemployment. Meanwhile the robust attitude of Lord Lansdowne and the Peers, and the splendid zeal of the Unionist Party in the House of Commons, have already had a marked effect on Ministerial action, as apart from platform speeches. While, on the one hand, excited orators summon enthusiastic meetings to demand "the Budget, the whole Budget, and nothing but the Budget," the Budget itself is being so rapidly altered that it is difficult to keep pace with the lightning changes of its promoters, who, as Mr. Lyttelton pointed out in an incisive speech (August 20), behave very differently in Parliament to what they do on the stump. (At Westminster Mr. Lloyd George is all oil and butter; at Limehouse he is all fire and brimstone.) The original land clauses have been substantially modified and the cost of valuation transferred from landowners to the State. The Licensing clauses admittedly won't hold water. To our mind the most serious possibility in politics is such a climb down by the House of Commons as to deprive the House of Lords of all legitimate excuse for rejecting the Finance Bill, because the most urgent of all public needs is the speedy disappearance of a legislature, happily nicknamed by the Observer the Plunderbund, whose existence is an hourly danger to every Imperial and national interest. We shall doubtless be told that as Ministers funk dissolution, they would not in any case allow the House of Lords to force their hand. The heroic Mr. Harcourt tells us (Derby, August 20), "It is vain to prophesy what would be the immediate result of such a situation (i.e., the rejection of the Budget by the Peers). It would be rash to assume that only one course is open to His Majesty's Government." It would indeed be both vain and rash to assume that Mr. Harcourt and Co. would adopt the manly, honourable course of risking

their places and appealing to the people, all the more because when in Opposition they are ardent advocates of triennial Parliaments, and the Plunderbund has already lasted nearly four years. Circumstances would however be too strong for a cowardly Cabinet, and a General Election must rapidly follow the rejection of the Budget. Every month of postponement would cost the Radicals another fifty seats. The Asquith Cabinet have managed to manœuvre themselves into the identical position of the late Unionist Cabinet after 1903. A similar fate will assuredly overtake them.

WHILE the Unionist Party are to be heartily congratulated on their magnificent fight against overwhelming odds in the House of Commons, the results of which are already writ Tactics large on the Budget of the Plunderbund, their efforts elsewhere have been somewhat less brilliant. It is only natural that numerous powerful interests penalised by LloydGeorge finance should make themselves heard, but the Unionist Party is much more than a Party of interests, and in a Partygoverned country it would be better for the interests to fight behind the Party than for the Party to fight behind the interests. Many persons can never be induced to take a keen interest in politics until their pockets are threatened, but they do not constitute the Unionist Party, to which they do considerable harm so long as they monopolise the limelight. Nor can it be said that the protests against the Budget have always assumed the most dignified and impressive form. It is not easy to remain dignified and impressive when a footpad has his hand on one's throat. Far be it from us to join in any cheap jibes at Dukes, several of whom are among the most valuable members of the community, and in passing we would register a protest against the indecent exploitation of certain unpremeditated utterances in which great landlords may have discussed with their tenants the possible effect of the Budget upon their expenditure. The correspondence in which Sir Edward Grey undertook to instruct the Duke of Northumberland how to retrench with the minimum harm to the community threw little fresh light on a difficult problem, even though it contained such illuminating suggestions as that he should earn his living, presumably by becoming a solicitor, a doctor, a novelist, a dentist, a gardener, &c. &c.-hardly helpful, as the Duke of

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Northumberland pointed out, to a man of sixty-three. There is no getting round the fact that men of great possessions, Dukes or otherwise, who see very little of their nominal incomes, can only retrench at the expense of other people. At the same time human nature being what it is, it might perhaps be as well to leave others to enforce this elementary truism.* (We must not allow the Radical Party to divert attention from the fact that whereas Conservative Dukes are heavily hit by the Budget, Radical millionaires-living in vulgar villas and squandering their substance in trying to buy the society of people who don't want them are let off very cheaply. Several of them could only be satisfactorily tapped by a special super-tax on aliens.

Tariff
Reform

As we have said, we do not believe in the alleged popularity of the Budget, nor are we intimidated by the claptrap of a secondrate Jack Cade, as the Spectator has appropriately dubbed the Chancellor of the Exchequer, which will inflict infinitely more harm on the Government than on the Opposition. England has never been ruled by demagogues or by demonstrations, but by the quiet people who stay at home and form their own conclusions. Jack Cade could only become dangerous if his opponents hesitated, for the Party which hesitates is lost. Democracy despises fear, and is liable to flock en masse to the other side. We are in full sympathy with the powerful arguments of the Observer in favour of meeting effrontery with boldness.†We cannot agree with the Spectator, that the Peers should swallow the Budget minus the Land Clauses. The House of Lords would then appear to be a House

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An invaluable service would, however, be rendered to the country by the Duke of Westminster in prosecuting that foul-mouthed tub-thumper the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who has charged the Duke with “blackmail.”

The case against funking is tersely stated by Lord Ebury in a letter to the Morning Post (August 24), which ends thus: "I am quite alive to the possibility that the electorate, corrupted by the prospect of bribes and blinded by a campaign of falsehood, might confirm the present Government in power with a greatly reduced majority, but in neither of these cases can the position of the House of Lords be as bad as it will be if from transparent timidity they allow their dismissal from the Constitution to go by default and prove faithless to the interest of the millions who have a right to look to them for protection in the enjoyment of their legal and constitutional rights. By common consent there would be no further use for an Assembly which had forfeited the confidence of its friends and incurred the contempt of its enemies."

of Landlords, solely concerned to defend landed interests, and totally indifferent about everything else. To the mass of townspeople a "landlord" means a rent-collector, occasionally the collector of an extortionate rent for miserable accommodation. The Unionist Party would hang a mill-stone round its neck if it fought the Budget purely as a landlords' party. Nor can we afford to fight it at all except on condition that we put our own alternative of Tariff Reform in the foreground, instead of allowing it to remain in the background, as seems to have been the original policy of the Budget Protest League, organised by Mr. Walter Long, but inspired by Lord Avebury, whose grotesque "alternative Budgets" are the laughing-stock of serious people. Every one who is not a fossil can see that Free Imports is hopelessly doomed. There is no possibility of reducing expenditure in the face of German naval competition. On the contrary, there must be a substantial increase in the coming years. The only alternatives are Jack Cade or Tariff Reform. Our case against the Budget is that before another single penny is levied on a single Englishman we must tax the foreigner who taxes us.

Miscellaneous

THE interesting inhabitants of Crete have managed to make themselves a great nuisance during the past month, attracting an amount of attention from Europe out of all proportion to their importance. Indeed, at one moment it appeared as though they might be the cause of a war between Turkey and Greece. Feeling naturally runs high in both countries as to the future status of Crete, and on the inopportune withdrawal of the forces of the four protecting Powers disquieting Notes were exchanged between the Governments of Constantinople and Athens with reference to the hoisting of the Greek flag at Canea and Candia. Ultimately the Powers were compelled to return in force, bluejackets cut down the flagstaffs, and it is hoped that the incident is finally closed. Another source of anxiety is the growing tension between China and Japan, whose former friendly relations have distinctly deteriorated, as explained by the Special Correspondent of the Times lately in the Far East in a series of valuable articles now appearing in our leading journal. One of the controversies, i.e., in reference to the Antung-Mugden Railway, on which the Japanese have a strong

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