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Page 14
I say these are difficulties which any party or any man, who is
prepared to do his duty by the electorate of this country, not merely
to ingratiate himself with them for the moment, but to win their
confidence by deserving it, by telling them the truth, by serving
their permanent interests and not their passing moods, is bound to
face. For my own part, I have always been perfectly frank on these
questions. I have maintained on many platforms, I am prepared to
maintain here to-night and shall always maintain, although this is a
subject on which it may be long before my views are included in any
party programme--I say I shall always maintain that real security is
not possible without citizen service, and that the training of every
able-bodied man to be capable of taking part, if need be, in the
defence of his country, is not only good for the country but good for
the man--and would materially assist in the solution of many other
problems, social and economic. But being, as I am, thus
uncompromising, and quite prepared to find myself unpopular, on these
vital questions of national security, and of our Imperial duties and
responsibilities, I can perhaps afford to say, without being suspected
of fawning or of wishing to play the demagogue myself, that in the
matter of domestic reform I am not easy to frighten, and that I have a
very great trust in the essential fair-mindedness and good sense of
the great body of my fellow countrymen with regard to questions which
come within their own direct cognisance. And therefore it was most
reassuring to me at any rate--and I hope it was to you--to observe,
that that large section of the Unionist Party which met at Birmingham
last week, not so much by any resolutions or formal programme--for
there was nothing very novel in these--as by the whole tone and temper
of its proceedings, affirmed in the most emphatic manner the
essentially progressive and democratic character of Unionism. The
greatest danger I hold to the Unionist Party and to the nation is that
the ideals of national strength and Imperial consolidation on the one
hand, and of democratic progress and domestic reform on the other,
should be dissevered, and that people should come to regard as
antagonistic objects which are essentially related and complementary
to one another. The upholders of the Union, the upholders of the
Empire, the upholders of the fundamental institutions of the State,
must not only be, but must be seen and known to be, the strenuous and
constant assailants of those two great related curses of our social
system--irregular employment and unhealthy conditions of life--and of
all the various causes which lead to them.
I cannot stay here to enumerate those causes, but I will mention a
few of them. There is the defective training of children, defective
physical training to begin with, and then the failure to equip them
with any particular and definite form of skill. There is the irregular
way in which new centres of population are allowed to spring up, so
that we go on creating fresh slums as fast as we pull down the old
rookeries. There is the depopulation of the countryside, and the
influx of foreign paupers into our already overcrowded towns. There is
the undermining of old-established and valuable British industries by
unfair foreign competition. That is not an exhaustive list, but it is
sufficient to illustrate my meaning. Well, wherever these and similar
evils are eating away the health and independence of our working
people, there the foundations of the Empire are being undermined, for
it is the race that makes the Empire. Loud is the call to every true
Unionist, to every true Imperialist, to come to the rescue.
And now at the risk of wearying you there is one other subject to
which I would like specially to refer, lest I should be accused of
deliberately giving it the go-by, and that is the question of old age
pensions. It is not a reform altogether of the same nature as those on
which I have been dwelling, nor is it perhaps the kind of reform about
which I feel the greatest enthusiasm, because I would rather attack
the causes, which lead to that irregularity of employment and that
under-payment which prevents people from providing for their own old
age themselves, than merely remedy the evils arising from it. But I
accept the fact that under present conditions, which it may be that a
progressive policy in time will alter, a sufficient case for State aid
in the matter of old age pensions has been made out, and I believe
that no party is going to oppose the introduction of old age pensions.
But, on the other hand, I foresee great difficulties and great
disputes over the question of the manner in which the money is to be
provided. I know how our Radical friends will wish to provide the
money. They will want to get it, in the first instance, by starving
the Army and the Navy. To that way of providing it I hope the Unionist
Party, however unpopular such a course may be, and however liable to
misrepresentation it may be, will oppose an iron resistance, because
this is an utterly rotten and bad way of financing old age pensions,
or anything else. But that method alone, however far it is carried,
will not provide money enough, and there will be an attempt to raise
the rest by taxes levied exclusively on the rich. I am against that
also, because it is thoroughly wrong in principle. I am not against
making the rich pay, to the full extent of their capacity, for great
national purposes, even for national purposes in which they have no
direct interest. But I am not prepared to see them made to pay
exclusively. Let all pay according to their means. It is a thoroughly
vicious idea that money should be taken out of the pocket of one man,
however rich, in order to be put into the pocket of another, however
poor. That is a bad, anti-national principle, and I hope the
Unionist Party will take a firm stand against it. And this is an
additional reason why we should raise whatever money may be necessary
by duties upon foreign imports, because in that way all will
contribute. No doubt the rich will contribute the bulk of the money
through the duties on imported luxuries, but there will be some
contribution, as there ought to be some contribution, from every class
of the people.
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