to send that message to the House of Lords? But that will be the
consequence of every vote subtracted from the Liberal majority.

Why, gentlemen, let me return to the general current of events. What
is the Government doing at present, and what has it done in its brief
existence? Within the limits under which it works, and under the
present authority of the House of Lords, what has it done and what is
it doing for Trade Unionists? It has passed the Trades Disputes Act.
The Workmen's Compensation Act has extended the benefits of
compensation to six million persons not affected by previous
legislation. The qualification of Justices of the Peace--the citizens'
Privy Councillorship, as I call it--has been reduced so as to make it
more easy for persons not possessed of this world's goods to qualify
to take their place on the civic Bench. You know the land legislation
for England, which is designed to secure that the suitable man who
wants a small parcel of land to cultivate for his own profit and
advantage shall not be prevented from obtaining it by feudal
legislation, by old legal formalities or class prejudice. And is the
Licensing Bill not well worth a good blow struck, and struck now,
while the iron is hot? Then there is the Miners' Eight Hours Bill, a
measure that has been advocated by the miners for twenty years, and
justified by the highest medical testimony on humanitarian and
hygienic grounds. It is costing us votes and supporters. It is
costing us by-elections, yet it is being driven through. Have we not a
right to claim the support of the Trade Unionists who are associated
with the miners? Don't they feel that this measure is hanging in the
balance, not in the House of Commons, but in the balance in the House
of Lords, which attaches to by-elections an importance which, in their
arrogant assertion, entitles them to mutilate or reject legislation,
even although it comes to them by the majority of a Parliament newly