I do not agree with the Leader of the Opposition, that they will meet the charges which are placed upon them for the needs of this year by evasion and fraud, and by cutting down the charities which their good feelings have prompted them to dispense.  The man who proposes to meet taxation by cutting down his charities, is not the sort of man who is likely to find any very extensive source of economy in the charities which he has hitherto given.  As for evasion, I hope the right hon. gentleman and his supporters underrate the public spirit which animates a proportion at any rate of the class which would be most notably affected by the present taxation.  And there is for their consolation one great assurance which is worth much more to them than a few millions, more or less, of taxation.  It is this—­that we are this year taking all that we are likely to need for the policy which is now placed before the country, and which will absorb the energies of this Parliament.  And, so far as this Parliament is concerned, it is extremely unlikely, in the absence of a national calamity, that any further demand will be made upon them, or that the shifting and vague shadows of another impending Budget will darken the prospects of improving trade.

When all that may be said on these grounds has been said, we do not attempt to deny that the Budget raises some of the fundamental issues which divide the historic Parties in British politics.  We do not want to embitter those issues, but neither do we wish to conceal them.  We know that hon. gentlemen opposite believe that the revenue of the country could be better raised by a protective tariff.  We are confident that a free-trade system alone would stand the strain of modern needs and yield the expansive power which is necessary at the present time in the revenue.  And our proof shall be the swift accomplishment of the fact.  The right hon. gentleman opposite and his friends seek to arrest the tendency to decrease the proportion of indirect to direct taxation which has marked, in unbroken continuity, the course of the last sixty years.  We, on the other hand, regard that tendency as of deep-seated social significance, and we are resolved that it shall not be arrested.  So far as we are concerned, we are resolved that it shall continue until in the end the entire charge shall be defrayed from the profits of accumulated wealth and by the taxation of those popular indulgences which cannot be said in any way to affect the physical efficiency of labour.  The policy of the Conservative Party is to multiply and extend the volume and variety of taxes upon food and necessaries.  They will repose themselves, not only, as we are still forced to do, on tea and sugar, but upon bread and meat—­not merely upon luxuries and comforts, but also on articles of prime necessity.  Our policy is not to increase, but whenever possible to decrease, and ultimately to abolish altogether, taxes on articles of food and the necessaries of life.