The Liberal party during the last couple of days has had a large amount of advice showered upon it from every quarter of the House, and more especially from hon. Gentlemen opposite. I quite believe that the situation merits our great and anxious consideration, and that upon the Liberal party a big responsibility rests. Personally, I am prepared to accept my share of that responsibility. This situation was not one of our creation, In November of last year there was a Government in office with a good comfortable majority, but the Prime Minister, without consultation with his own people, decided to have a General Election; he staked all upon that gamble. He gambled and be lost, and now we apparently are to be made the scapegoats for that lost gamble. I personally foresaw what was going to happen. I put it in print. I said that if things went wrong with the Unionist party, the Labour party, as the strongest party in the House, would form the Government of this country. That prophecy has come true. It is not our doing. It is the doing of hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite. Now we are taunted that we are going to put the Socialists into power. Do let us, please, have a little consideration for each other. No one party has a right to arrogate all patriotism to itself. No party has a right to charge another party with unpatriotic conduct. Do let us have a little consideration for each other. We tried, and we shall try, as Liberals, to carry on the Constitutional Government of the country according to the best of our ability, with as much patriotism as hon. Gentlemen opposite.

We must not miss the tendencies of the age. The Franchise Act, which was passed with universal consent here—I happened to be on Mr. Speaker's Committee of that day—gave an enormous accretion to the franchise; and with that enormous extension of the franchise has coincided the Labour party's rise as a separate party. I frankly say to them that I have a great regret. I had the honour of a seat in this House at the same time as, and I worked with, Mr. Thomas Burt—than whom there was ne more respected Member of this House—with Mr. Broadhurst, Mr. Fenwick, Mr. John Wilson, and others. But they are gone. [An HON. MEMBER: "Where does the regret come in?"] I candidly confess I cannot agree with my Friends of the Labour party. They say quite frankly that they want to kill the Liberal party. [HON MEMBERS: "Hear, hear!"] Well, I have the instinct of self-preservation for myself and for my party. Whatever may be said, the La-hour vote has made astonishing progress in the last few years, and we cannot get away from that fact. It is stated, I think in "The Times" of yesterday, that in 1900 there were 62,000 Labour votes cast, and in 1923, 4,348,000. They are the second largest party in this House, and, perfectly constitutionally, they are elected here. There has been some violence at meetings—[Interruption]—I hope my hon. Friends will accept the facts. [Interruption.] Well, let us say on both sides. [HON. MEMBERS: "No"]

The Labour party has been elected here by perfectly constitutional methods, by the ballot. I am a constitutional Liberal, and I have to recognise the facts. If the Liberals were the second party in the State, which I hoped they might be, not a word would have been said against their taking office. Why, therefore, am I to deny to the Labour party what I certainly should claim for the Liberal party? I do not pretend to be in sympathy with the policy of hon. Gentlemen here. I am not in favour of Nationalisation; I am not in favour of the Capital Levy; I am not in favour of the system of doles which marches under the name of Social Reform. [An HON. MEMBER: "You are out of date!"] The Capital Levy cannot be carried, Nationalisation cannot be carried, unless hon. Gentlemen opposite amalgamate with the Labour party. I have said that I have the instinct of self-preservation, and I say, with all the emphasis and conviction at my command, that I believe the Liberal party has a great mission to fulfil in the government of this country. If we were, as I presume we have been invited to do—if we were to come over to support the Conservative party—to support this Government which has been beaten, the Liberal party would bleed to death. Tens of thousands of electors who voted for the Liberal party would say, "This is simply a party game." We are here for something more serious than that. For my part, I say that we as Liberals must maintain our independence, without concert or collusion with any other party; and I say to hon. Gentlemen opposite, if they profess to fear Socialism, that the best way to entrench a Socialist Government there, with a majority at its back, would be to kill the Liberal party.

There have been all sorts of prophesies, that we on Monday night shall seal the doom of the Liberal party. That comes badly from the architects of the doom of the present Government. Whatever may happen this old country is an industrialised country. It cannot have rash experiments played with it either by Socialists or Protectionists. We had to import last year £500,000,000 worth of food and £325,000,000 of raw material. That all has to be paid for by British labour or British services and that food and raw material, which we must have or starve, cannot be paid for by singing either "Rule Britannia" or the "Red Flag." Taxation to my mind is the great overmastering subject that any House of Commons would have to tackle and when I know that we are taxed something like £16 a head, that will be the greatest problem for any Government that comes in power. We cannot go on with that enormous load upon our manufactures and upon our labour. I say with all sincerity that I am not thinking so much of our own politics at house. I think of the foreign situation. I made a suggestion the other day. I suppose it will not be taken up. We want wise continuity in our foreign affairs. We may have Governments in and out. My hon. Friends will see a good many orientations in this Parliament if there is not a General Election pretty soon. I suggested that all parties should agree to support such a wise and sagacious statesman as Lord Grey to conduct our foreign affairs. I am not an expert on constitutional law, but I assert with some confidence that if a Labour Prime Minister is put into office it would be, in my judgment, placing the Crown in an extremely false position to refuse a demand for a Dissolution made by a Labour Prime Minister. I earnestly hope that whatever becomes of us as politicians we shall keep the Crown out of politics. On Monday next, I shall vote for this Amendment; I shall not vote for it with any enthusiasm, nor shall I vote for it with any apprehension. As far as I am concerned, I shall reserve my liberty to judge every question on its merits. I shall preserve unfettered my own individual liberty to meet the House of Commons, and the Measures that may be brought before it, hoping to do my best not for party but for my country as a whole.