is that there is no real safeguard in the House of Lords even in
regard to a movement against property.

But surely there are other securities upon which the stability of
society depends. In the ever-increasing complexities of social
problems, in the restrictions which are imposed from day to day with
increasing force on the action of individuals, above all, in the
dissemination of property among many classes of the population, lie
the real elements of stability on which our modern society depends.
There are to-day, unlike in former ages, actually millions of people
who possess not merely inert property, but who possess rent-earning,
profit-bearing property; and the danger with which we are confronted
now is not at all whether we shall go too fast. No, the danger is that
about three-fourths of the people of this country should move on in a
comfortable manner into an easy life, which, with all its ups and
downs, is not uncheered by fortune, while the remainder of the people
shall be left to rot and fester in the slums of our cities, or wither
in the deserted and abandoned hamlets of our rural districts.

That is the danger with which we are confronted at the present moment,
and it invests with a deep and real significance the issue which is
drawn between the two Parties to-night. It is quite true that there
are rich Members of the Liberal Party, and there are poor men who are
supporters of the Conservative Party; but in the main the lines of
difference between the two Parties are social and economic--in the
main the lines of difference are increasingly becoming the lines of
cleavage between the rich and the poor. Let that reflection be with
us in the struggle which we are now undertaking, and in which we shall
without pause press forward, confident of this, that, if we persevere,
we shall wrest from the hands of privilege and wealth the evil, ugly,