All the elections of the future will turn on tariffs.  Why, you can see the thing beginning already.  That egregious Tariff Commission have been dividing all the loot among themselves before the battle has been won—­dividing the lion’s skin while the beast lives—­and I was reading only the other day that the Conservatives of Norwood have decided that they could not support their Member any longer, because, forsooth, he would not pledge himself to vote for a special tax on foreign imported chairs and window panes.  It is the same in every country.

Such is the great conspiracy with which the British democracy is now confronted—­an attempt to place the main burden of taxation upon the shoulders of wage-earners and not on income-drawers, a disastrous blow at the prosperity, the freedom, the flexibility, and the expansive power of British industry, and a deadly injury to the purity of English public life.  The Conservative Party tell us that if they win the victory they will screw a protective tariff on our necks.  What do we say?  What of the House of Lords?  We say that if we win, we will smash to pieces the veto of the House of Lords.  If we should obtain a majority at the next election—­and I have good hopes that if we act with wisdom and with union, and, above all, with courage, we shall undoubtedly obtain an effective majority—­the prize we shall claim will be a final change in the relations of the two Houses of Parliament, of such a character as to enable the House of Commons to make its will supreme within the lifetime of a single Parliament; and except upon that basis, or for the express purpose of effecting that change, we will not accept any responsibility for the conduct of affairs.

But there is another issue which must not be overlooked.  I mean the social issue.  We have taken a great step already.  I must say that he is rather a sour kind of man who can find nothing to notice in the Old-Age Pensions Act except its little flaws and petty defects.  I think you will feel, on the contrary, that the establishment of the pensions system is a marvellous and impressive example of the power which British Governments possess.  Without a hitch, perfectly smoothly, punctual to the minute, regular as clockwork, nearly 600,000 aged persons are being paid their pensions every week.  That is a wonderful and beneficent achievement, a good job well worth some risk and sweat to finish.  Nearly eight millions of money are being sent circulating through unusual channels, long frozen by poverty, circulating in the homes of the poor, flowing through the little shops which cater to their needs, cementing again family unions which harsh fate was tearing asunder, uniting the wife to the husband, and the parent to the children.  No; in spite of Socialistic sneer and Tory jeer and glorious beer, and all the rest of it, I say it is a noble and inspiring event, for which this Parliament will be justly honoured by generations unborn.  I said just now that a Tory tariff victory meant marching