Liberalism and the Social Problem

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Liberalism and the Social Problem, by

Winston Spencer Churchill This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
Title: Liberalism and the Social Problem
Author: Winston Spencer Churchill
Release Date: May 18, 2006 [EBook #18419]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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LIBERALISM AND THE SOCIAL PROBLEM
BY
THE RIGHT HONOURABLE WINSTON SPENCER CHURCHILL M.P.
SECOND EDITION
HODDER AND STOUGHTON LONDON MCMIX

PREFACE
These are the principal speeches I have made within the last four years. They have been chosen and collected with the idea of presenting a consistent and simultaneous view of the general field of British politics in an hour of fateful decision. I have exercised full freedom in compression and in verbal correction necessary to make them easier to read. Facts and figures have been, where necessary, revised, ephemeral matter eliminated, and epithets here and there reconsidered. But opinions and arguments are unaltered; they are hereby confirmed, and I press them earnestly and insistently upon the public.
We approach what is not merely a party crisis but a national climacteric. Never did a great people enter upon a period of trial and choice with more sincere and disinterested desire to know the truth and to do justice in their generation. I believe they will succeed.
WINSTON S. CHURCHILL.
33 ECCLESTON SQUARE. October 26, 1909.

CONTENTS
PAGE
PREFACE vii
INTRODUCTION xiii
I
THE RECORD OF THE GOVERNMENT
THE CONCILIATION OF SOUTH AFRICA 3
THE TRANSVAAL CONSTITUTION 16
THE ORANGE FREE STATE CONSTITUTION 45
LIBERALISM AND SOCIALISM 67
IMPERIAL PREFERENCE--I. 85
IMPERIAL PREFERENCE--II. 106
THE HOUSE OF LORDS 124
THE DUNDEE ELECTION 147
II
SOCIAL ORGANISATION
THE MINES [EIGHT HOURS] BILL 173
UNEMPLOYMENT 189
THE SOCIAL FIELD 211
THE APPROACHING CONFLICT 225
THE ANTI-SWEATING BILL 239
LABOUR EXCHANGES AND UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE 253
III
THE BUDGET
THE BUDGET RESOLUTIONS 277
THE BUDGET AND NATIONAL INSURANCE 297
LAND AND INCOME TAXES IN THE BUDGET 318
THE BUDGET AND THE LORDS 344
THE SPIRIT OF THE BUDGET 357
THE BUDGET AND PROPERTY 384
THE CONSTITUTIONAL MENACE 405

INTRODUCTION
The series of speeches included in this volume ranges, in point of time, from the earlier months of Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman's Government to the latest phase in the fortunes of Mr. Asquith's succeeding Ministry, and forms an argumentative defence of the basis of policy common to both Administrations. The addresses it contains deal with nearly all the great political topics of the last four years--with Free Trade, Colonial Preferences, the South African settlement, the latest and probably the final charter of trade unionism, the Miners' Bill, the measures for establishing Trade Boards and Labour Exchanges, the schemes of compulsory and voluntary assurance, and the Budget. They possess the further characteristic of describing and commending these proposals as "interdependent" parts of a large and fruitful plan of Liberal statesmanship. Of this scheme the Budget is at once the foundation and the most powerful and attractive feature. If it prospers, the social policy for which it provides prospers too. If it fails, the policy falls to the ground.
The material of these speeches is therefore of great importance to the future of democracy in this country. Let me say a word as to their authorship. To a friendly critic they appear to present not only rare and highly trained qualities of statement and persuasion, but a unity and sincerity of thought which give them a place above mere party dialectics. Mr. Churchill's distinguished service to Liberalism has not been long in point of years, but it opened with the first speeches he ever delivered in the House of Commons. No competent observers of political activities, and of the characters and temperaments which direct them, can have doubted from the first moment of Mr. Churchill's appearance on the stage where his moral and intellectual sympathies lay and whither they would lead him. It is a true and, indeed, an obvious comment on his career to say that he began where his father left off--as a Democrat and a Free Trader, and that on these inherited instincts and tendencies he has built what both his friends and his enemies expected him to build. Mr. Churchill came to Liberalism from the same fold as Gladstone, and for the same reason--that it presented the one field of work open to a political talent of a high stamp, and to a wide and eager outlook on the future of