But it takes a great party to govern Great Britain—­no clique, no faction, no cabal, can govern the forty millions of people who live in this island.  It takes a vast concentration of forces to make a governing instrument.  You have now got a Radical and democratic governing instrument, and if this Administration is broken, that instrument will be shattered.  It has been recreated painfully and laboriously after twenty years by courage and fidelity.  It has come into being—­it is here.  It is now at work, and by legislation and by the influence which it can exercise throughout the whole world, it is making even our opponents talk our language, making all parties in the State think of social reform, and concern themselves with social and domestic affairs.  Beware how you injure that great instrument, as Mr. Gladstone called it—­or weaken it at a moment when the masses of this country have need of it.  Why, what would happen, if this present Government were to perish?  On its tomb would be written:  “Beware of social reform.  The labouring classes will not support a Government engaged in social reform.  Every social reform will cost you votes.  Beware of social reform.  ‘Learn to think Imperially.’”

An inconclusive verdict from Dundee, the home of Scottish Radicalism—­an inconclusive, or, still more, a disastrous verdict—­would carry a message of despair to every one in all parts of our island and in our sister island who is working for the essential influences and truths of Liberalism and progress.  Down, down, down would fall the high hopes of the social reformer.  The constructive plans now forming in so many brains would melt into air.  The old regime would be reinstated, reinstalled.  Like the Bourbons, they will have learned nothing and will have forgotten nothing.  We shall step out of the period of adventurous hope in which we have lived for a brief spell; we shall step back to the period of obstinate and prejudiced negations.  For Ireland—­ten years of resolute government; for England—­dear food and cheaper gin; and for Scotland—­the superior wisdom of the House of Lords!  Is that the work you want to do, men of Dundee?  Is that the work to which you will put your precious franchises—­your votes, which have been won for you by so much struggle in the past?  No; I am confident that this city, which has of its own free will plunged into the very centre of national politics, will grasp the opportunity now presented; that its command will not be back, but forward; that its counsel will be not timidity, but courage, and that it will aim not at dividing, but at rallying the progressive forces, not at dissipating, but at combining the energies of reform.  That will be the message which you will send in tones which no man can mistake—­so that a keen, strong, northern air shall sweep across our land to nerve and brace the hearts of men, to encourage the weak, to fortify the strong, to uplift the generous, to correct the proud.