We must, unfortunately, pass over the speeches of ilk Haldane
and Mr. Long without comment, and we can only find space to note how Mr. Balfour on Tuesday, in a, speech of no little subtlety, drove home the fact that ths Government would not or could not say how the vast liabilities incurred under the Bill were to be met. They had failed also to show that they proposed to spend the huge sums necessary in the beat way. The subject could not be rightly dealt with apart from the Subject of the Poor Law, upon which the Com- mission was shortly to report. Mr. Asquith, who wound up the debate for the Government, replied with great vigour, and made what was no doubt an excellent House of Command speech. To thtiise, hoWever, who are not specially impressed by House of Commons points; it mast be admitted that there Was very little in it eicept did peroration; Which *its, from the oratorical point of view, a fine petforinttnce
" Are we, bectiuie of the diiiibultieS and beettuiii of thh6OMPlexit¢ Of the task, to sit still; with dtimb lips and With folded arms and bewildered brains and palsied energies, while this great pros cession of the poor and necessitous and unbefriended linger out the last days of lives the strenuous years of which have been given to the service of industry and of the State?"
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