in other countries is called a referendum-for a direct popular reference as to whether you desire a revision of the Constitution in this sense or whether you do not. We think, then, that the time has come, or has nearly come, for that, for a free popular reference to the people of Great Britain and Ireland to settle the Constitution of this country once for all, not in reference merely to tradition, but in reference also to accomplished facts. Then will come your part. The Government will have done its part, and it will then be your turn. If you have come to the conviction that the House of Lords understands your wishes better than do your own representatives, you will give effect by your verdict to that impression. You will dispense with your representation, and abide contentedly by the unbiassed, the patriarchal, and the mellow wisdom of the House of Lords. You will thank us for having done you the favour of being born. It will be unnecessary any further to go through the musty and superfluous process of popular election, for you will have beside you a self-constituted body that will save you any trouble of the kind. But if you take a different view, if for years you have been chafing under the foot of the House of Lords, if for years you have been wondering at this strange survival of an almost antediluvian period, if for years you have been instructing your repre

sentatives to do all that in them lies to maintain your interests against their influence, then you will make ready for the fight. You will remember, as I have told you before, that in this great contest there lie behind you to inspire you all those great reforms, those great aspirations and great measures upon which you have set your hearts. Before you lie all the forces of prejudice and privilege; before you lie the earthworks behind which are concealed, as I have said, the enemies whom you long to fight, whom you have fought so long. Let me say, if you are prepared to go into this fight, fight as your forefathers fought, fight with their stubborn, persistent, indomitable will. Fight as they fought in Yorkshire, as those old Ironsides fought in Yorkshire, never knowing when they were beaten, and determined not to be beaten. Fight-as they would have said to you--fight, not in the arm of the flesh, but with the arm of the spirit. Fight by the means of educating your fellow-men-not as to the object, for in that I maintain you are clear, but as to the proper means of attaining that object. But if you believe that this Government are in earnest in this matter you will come to their support. We fling down the gauntlet. It is for you to take it up..

WELSH DISESTABLISHMENT

At Cardiff (National Liberal Federation),
18th January 1895

I AM deeply grateful to you for this resolution of confidence in the Government, and for the manner in which it has been proposed and seconded. The proposer [Dr. Spence Watson] is known to all England as, though not in Parliament, much more important than most members of Parliament, as being president of the National Liberal Federation; and as for the seconder [Mr. D. A. Thomas, M.P.], I fold the returning prodigal to my arms. Gentlemen, I should be vain and I should be mistaken, if I took more than a very small part of this resolution as being devoted to myself. The task of legislation, the hard work of the Government, falls mainly on my colleagues in the Commons; and among those colleagues, who have all done strenuous and admirable work, we must all enthusiastically give the first place to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who has laboured so brilliantly and so effectively for the Government,

and who in so doing has left so permanent a mark on the financial legislation of the country. Now, gentlemen, this meeting, I suppose, represents that break-up of the Liberal party which is so frequent a theme of Conservative orators, and lately of Mr. Balfour himself. But in any case it is difficult to feel that this is not a memorable occasion, for we meet on the battlefield. We meet on the field where the first blow is to be struck, for, as you know, your great Welsh measure is the first that we put in the front of our programme. But, gentlemen, if it be memorable to you, it is much. more memorable to me. It is more than six and twenty years since I first visited Cardiff, since I was last in Cardiff, when I came to the coming of age of my old college friend, Lord Bute. Well, one feels almost like a Rip Van Winkle when one reads the figures of the progress that you have made in the meantime. When I was last here you had a population of 40,000. I come back and find you with a population of 150,000. When I was last here your rateable value was about £150,000, and it is now over £860,000. And as for your shipping, I cannot get the figures of the year when I was here in 1868, but ten years before that your shipping amounted to a million and a half tons, and now it amounts to no less than fifteen million tons. Such progress resembles the progress

of one of the American cities of the West. It is a proud and pleasing reflection for the inhabitants. and the citizens of Cardiff to see so rapid a progress, combined with so material and splendid a result.

But, gentlemen, this visit is memorable to me for another reason, and it is this: It is the first time that I have been privileged to address the National Liberal Federation, and on such an occasion I cannot help asking, What are the purposes and functions of that Federation? I take it that your first and your most important function is this: To thrash out the various issues that lie before the Liberal party. For that purpose you must discuss many questions, and you must look far ahead. That task is comparatively easy, because you are bound and circumscribed by no limit. You might, if you choose, survey the whole field of human endeavour, and mark out in each department what to promote and what to avoid, and no one could blame you. But after this task of thrashing out, there comes a much more delicate and difficult operation, and that is, the operation of winnowing, an operation which has to be performed before every session by that committee which you call the Cabinet, and which is subject to all those influences which Mr. Thomas has so graphically described. Now, gentlemen, the Cabinet have to select from