CROMWELL OR ROBESPIERRE P [To ono TIMOR or 555 ..Srsoratos.-]
Sin,—Will you allow a citizen and elector to utter his indignant protest against the astounding audacity of Mr. Lloyd George in threatening the country with "a revolution" if his precious Budget is not passed? The preposterous egoism which persistently associates the speaker with the source of all philanthropic progress and reform is, and has long been, intolerable enough. Morally this bullying outburst is on a par with the charge made (in an odious pamphlet, I believe subsequently suppressed) against critics of the Lloyd-Georgian Insurance Act that they were merciless foes of child-bearing women. The calm appropria- tion, by one prominent party statesman, to his own particular political mill-wheel, of the whole vast tide of popular philan- thropic emotion indicates a sufficiently self-conceited attitude, and the impertinent and unscrupulous suggestion uttered to the House of Commons in which the Chancellor of the Exchequer frankly pones as the demagogue of triumphant mobocracy threatening the classes with "Your money or your life!" is surely a novel species of outrage upon a modern English Parliament. It seems strange that the Second Chamber held no member capable of replying that the English people may be assumed, pace Mr. Lloyd George, to trust the discussion of their rights and needs to their accredited representatives, and to await with reason and patience the decisions arrived at by a discussion in which all classes are entitled to be fairly heard. But if we are living under the philanthropic despotism of a President of some " Committee of Public Safety" in touch with the secret forces of anarchy, it is well the public should realize this, and ask themselves how long they will endure it.—I am, Sir, Ste., LIBERAL UNIONIST.
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