Liberalism and the Social Problem

Liberalism and the Social
Problem, by

Winston Spencer Churchill This eBook is for the use of anyone
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Title: Liberalism and the Social Problem
Author: Winston Spencer Churchill
Release Date: May 18, 2006 [EBook #18419]
Language: English
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LIBERALISM AND THE SOCIAL PROBLEM
BY
THE RIGHT HONOURABLE WINSTON SPENCER CHURCHILL
M.P.
SECOND EDITION
HODDER AND STOUGHTON LONDON MCMIX

PREFACE
These are the principal speeches I have made within the last four years.
They have been chosen and collected with the idea of presenting a
consistent and simultaneous view of the general field of British politics
in an hour of fateful decision. I have exercised full freedom in
compression and in verbal correction necessary to make them easier to
read. Facts and figures have been, where necessary, revised, ephemeral
matter eliminated, and epithets here and there reconsidered. But
opinions and arguments are unaltered; they are hereby confirmed, and I
press them earnestly and insistently upon the public.
We approach what is not merely a party crisis but a national climacteric.
Never did a great people enter upon a period of trial and choice with
more sincere and disinterested desire to know the truth and to do justice
in their generation. I believe they will succeed.

WINSTON S. CHURCHILL.
33 ECCLESTON SQUARE. October 26, 1909.

CONTENTS
PAGE
PREFACE vii
INTRODUCTION xiii
I
THE RECORD OF THE GOVERNMENT
THE CONCILIATION OF SOUTH AFRICA 3
THE TRANSVAAL CONSTITUTION 16
THE ORANGE FREE STATE CONSTITUTION 45
LIBERALISM AND SOCIALISM 67
IMPERIAL PREFERENCE--I. 85
IMPERIAL PREFERENCE--II. 106
THE HOUSE OF LORDS 124
THE DUNDEE ELECTION 147
II
SOCIAL ORGANISATION
THE MINES [EIGHT HOURS] BILL 173

UNEMPLOYMENT 189
THE SOCIAL FIELD 211
THE APPROACHING CONFLICT 225
THE ANTI-SWEATING BILL 239
LABOUR EXCHANGES AND UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE
253
III
THE BUDGET
THE BUDGET RESOLUTIONS 277
THE BUDGET AND NATIONAL INSURANCE 297
LAND AND INCOME TAXES IN THE BUDGET 318
THE BUDGET AND THE LORDS 344
THE SPIRIT OF THE BUDGET 357
THE BUDGET AND PROPERTY 384
THE CONSTITUTIONAL MENACE 405

INTRODUCTION
The series of speeches included in this volume ranges, in point of time,
from the earlier months of Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman's
Government to the latest phase in the fortunes of Mr. Asquith's
succeeding Ministry, and forms an argumentative defence of the basis
of policy common to both Administrations. The addresses it contains
deal with nearly all the great political topics of the last four years--with
Free Trade, Colonial Preferences, the South African settlement, the

latest and probably the final charter of trade unionism, the Miners' Bill,
the measures for establishing Trade Boards and Labour Exchanges, the
schemes of compulsory and voluntary assurance, and the Budget. They
possess the further characteristic of describing and commending these
proposals as "interdependent" parts of a large and fruitful plan of
Liberal statesmanship. Of this scheme the Budget is at once the
foundation and the most powerful and attractive feature. If it prospers,
the social policy for which it provides prospers too. If it fails, the policy
falls to the ground.
The material of these speeches is therefore of great importance to the
future of democracy in this country. Let me say a word as to their
authorship. To a friendly critic they appear to present not only rare and
highly trained qualities of statement and persuasion, but a unity and
sincerity of thought which give them a place above mere party
dialectics. Mr. Churchill's distinguished service to Liberalism has not
been long in point of years, but it opened with the first speeches he ever
delivered in the House of Commons. No competent observers of
political activities, and of the characters and temperaments which direct
them, can have doubted from the first moment of Mr. Churchill's
appearance on the stage where his moral and intellectual sympathies
lay and whither they would lead him. It is a true and, indeed, an
obvious comment on his career to say that he began where his father
left off--as a Democrat and a Free Trader, and that on these inherited
instincts and