I want to-night to speak about these cross-currents; and let me first
say a word about Socialism. There are a great many Socialists whose
characters and whose views I have much respect for--men some of whom I
know well, and whose friendship I enjoy. A good many of those
gentlemen who have delightful, rosy views of a noble and brilliant
future for the world, are so remote from hard facts of daily life and
of ordinary politics that I am not very sure that they will bring any
useful or effective influence to bear upon the immediate course of
events. To the revolutionary Socialist, whether dreamer or politician,
I do not appeal as the Liberal candidate for Dundee. I recognise that
they are perfectly right in voting against me and voting against the
Liberals, because Liberalism is not Socialism, and never will be.
There is a great gulf fixed. It is not only a gulf of method, it is a
gulf of principle. There are many steps we have to take which our
Socialist opponents or friends, whichever they like to call
themselves, will have to take with us; but there are immense
differences of principle and of political philosophy between our views
and their views.

Liberalism has its own history and its own tradition. Socialism has
its own formulas and aims. Socialism seeks to pull down wealth;
Liberalism seeks to raise up poverty. Socialism would destroy private
interests; Liberalism would preserve private interests in the only way
in which they can be safely and justly preserved, namely, by
reconciling them with public right. Socialism would kill enterprise;
Liberalism would rescue enterprise from the trammels of privilege and
preference. Socialism assails the pre-eminence of the individual;
Liberalism seeks, and shall seek more in the future, to build up a
minimum standard for the mass. Socialism exalts the rule; Liberalism
exalts the man. Socialism attacks capital; Liberalism attacks