Now, I want you to see what a large, coherent plan we are trying to work out, and I want you to believe that the object of the plan and the results of it will be to make us a stronger as well as a happier nation.  I was reading the other day some of the speeches made by Bismarck—­a man who, perhaps more than any other, built up in his own lifetime the strength of a great nation—­speeches which he made during the time when he was introducing into Germany those vast insurance schemes, now deemed by all classes and parties in Germany to be of the utmost consequence and value.  “I should like to see the State” (said Prince Bismarck in 1881), “which for the most part consists of Christians, penetrated to some extent by the principles of the religion which it professes, especially as concerns the help one gives to his neighbour, and sympathy with the lot of old and suffering people.”  Then, again, in the year 1884 he said:  “The whole matter centres in the question, ’Is it the duty of the State or is it not to provide for its helpless citizens?’ I maintain that it is its duty, that it is the duty, not only of the ‘Christian’ State, as I ventured once to call it when speaking of ‘Practical Christianity,’ but of every State.”

There are a great many people who will tell you that such a policy, as I have been endeavouring to outline to you this afternoon, will not make our country stronger, because it will sap the self-reliance of the working classes.  It is very easy for rich people to preach the virtues of self-reliance to the poor.  It is also very foolish, because, as a matter of fact, the wealthy, so far from being self-reliant, are dependent on the constant attention of scores, and sometimes even hundreds, of persons who are employed in waiting upon them and ministering to their wants.  I think you will agree with me, on the other hand—­knowing what you do of the life of this city and of the working classes generally—­that there are often trials and misfortunes which come upon working-class families quite beyond any provision which their utmost unaided industry and courage could secure for them.  Left to themselves, left absolutely to themselves, they must be smashed to pieces, if any exceptional disaster or accident, like recurring sickness, like the death or incapacity of the breadwinner, or prolonged or protracted unemployment, fall upon them.

There is no chance of making people self-reliant by confronting them with problems and with trials beyond their capacity to surmount.  You do not make a man self-reliant by crushing him under a steam roller.  Nothing in our plans will relieve people from the need of making every exertion to help themselves, but, on the contrary, we consider that we shall greatly stimulate their efforts by giving them for the first time a practical assurance that those efforts will be crowned with success.

I have now tried to show you that the Budget, and the policy of the Budget, is the first conscious attempt on the part of the State to build up a better and a more scientific organisation of society for the workers of this country, and it will be for you to say—­at no very distant date—­whether all this effort for a coherent scheme of social reconstruction is to be swept away into the region of lost endeavour.