The Progress of the World. 



629 



was seriously considering the recon- 

 struction of the House of Lords, pro- 

 mised in the preamble of the Parliament 

 Act. Whatever differences there may 

 be in the Liberal ranks as to the relative 

 advantages of a single or double 

 Chamber system, there is no question 

 that the powers of delay at present 

 possessed by the House of Lords can- 

 not much longer be tolerated by a 

 democratic nation. As to the precise 

 form of the new Senate, there is much 

 speculation. It is rumoured that the 

 scheme which had found Cabinet favour 

 was a Senate directly chosen by the 

 House of Commons electorate, and com- 

 posed of two members from each of 

 seventy-five constituencies. The first 

 obvious criticism on such a scheme f -"om 

 the democratic standpoint was that the 

 size of the constituency would put a 

 premium on candidates of great wealth, 

 who therefore would presumably be less 

 representative of popular needs. The 

 advocates of the scheme, however, have 

 renounced it, so we are informed, on 

 precisely contrary grounds. The Times 

 states that " the chief influence which 

 w^as likely to run through a huge con- 

 stituency was that of the Trade Unions, 

 who would act together, with the prob- 

 able result that a majority of Trade 

 U^nion Senators would be returned." So 

 organised labour, even in the large 

 constituency, is felt to be more than a 

 match for land and capital combined ! 



Mr. Lloyd George, who 



The Chancellor SCCmS tO haVC at last 



at Aberdeen, succccded iu coming to 

 terms with the doctors, 

 was perhaps for that reason in his most 

 sanguine mood at Aberdeen. He 

 jubilantly portrayed the benefits certain 

 to accrue from the Insurance Act, and 



declared that the task of Liberalism had 

 only begun. It had to deal with the 

 gigantic problems of preventible poverty 

 in a land overflowing with the abund- 

 ance of wealth. He used an analogy of 

 which doubtless much use will be made : 



If you were in a beleaguered city no sane governor 

 would allow the man in the trenches to go ill-fed, ill- 

 clad, ill-housed, when there was more than a sufficiency 

 in the city to provide for. all. I am all for fair play 

 for the men in the trenches. 



Without indicating any programme of 

 land legislation, the Chancellor declared 

 that the land was at the root of most 

 of our social problems. But he laid 

 down one essential principle for all land 

 legislation, " that the first purpose of 

 the land of this country be not the 

 conferring of power and pleasure on the 

 favoured few, but the provision of 

 sustenance and shelter for the multitudes 

 who toil." The spirit of the speech is 

 best expressed in the closing words, 

 which he hoped each of his hearers 

 might use when they came to give up 

 the reckoning of their life on earth : 



I found in my native land poverty, distress, wretched- 

 ness, and misery, but I so strove with my fellows that 

 now, when I come to leave, I find plenty, happiness, 

 comfort, and everything that brings lustre to the story 

 of your past, everything that gives hope for the future. 



If this be Mr. George's own epitaph, 

 happy will he be. 



A curious Nemesis has 



London Traffic ovcrtakcu thc Progrcs- 



Trust. gjyg leaders on the 



London County Council. 

 For years they have blocked the emi- 

 nently reasonable and necessary demand 

 that the present chaos in the transit 

 arrangements of the Metropolitan area 

 should be brought into something like 

 system under a London Traffic Board. 

 Even when in a minority at Spring 

 Gardens, thev have used their influence 

 with the Liberal Government against 



