unquestionably mean that the House of Lords would become the main source and origin of all political power under the Crown.  Now that is a great quarrel; that is a quarrel on which we had hoped, on which we had been taught, that the sword had been sheathed victoriously for ever.  And that is the issue that is before us now.  We do not intend to soften it in any way.  The responsibility for the consequences must rest with the aggressor who first violates the constitutional tradition of our land.

The Budget is through Committee.  We have had not merely an exhaustive but an exhausting discussion.  I am told by ingenious calculators in the newspapers that over six hundred hours, from some of which I confess I have been absent, of debate have been accorded to the Committee stage.  No guillotine closure has been applied.  Full, free, unfettered debate has been accorded—­has been accorded with a patience and with a generosity unprecedented in Parliamentary annals, and which in effect has left a minority not merely satisfied in all the conditions of reasonable debate, but unable even on grounds of the most meticulous partisanship to complain that the fullest opportunity has not been accorded to them.  In all this long process of six hundred hours and upwards we have shown ourselves willing to make concessions.  They are boasting to-day that they, forsooth, are in part the authors of the Budget.  Every effort has been made to meet honest and outspoken difference; every effort has been made to gather for this Budget—­the people’s Budget, as they know full well it is—­the greatest measure of support not only among the labouring classes, but among all classes in our vast and complicated community.

It has been a terrible strain.  Lord Rosebery the other day at Glasgow paid his tribute to the gallant band who had fought in opposition to the Budget.  Had he no word for his old friends?  Had he no word for those who were once proud to follow him, and who now use in regard to him only the language of regret?  Had he no word for that other gallant band, twice as numerous, often three times as numerous, as the Tory Opposition, who have sat through all these months—­fine speakers silent through self-suppression for the cause, wealthy men sitting up to unreasonable hours to pass taxes by which they are mulcted as much as any Tory?  Men who have gone on even at the cost of their lives—­had he no word for them?  We to-night gathered together here in the National Liberal Club have a word and a cheer for the private members of the Liberal Party in the House of Commons who have fought this battle through with unequalled loyalty and firmness, and who have shown a development of Parliamentary power to carry a great measure which I venture to say has no counterpart in the Parliamentary history of this country.