The tide has by no means spent itself. If it no longer rushes in an electoral torrent as in 1906 it flows in a steady stream towards social amelioration and democratic government. In this movement it is now sufficiently clear to all parties that the distinctive ideas of Liberalism have a permanent function. The Socialist recognizes with perfect clearness, for example, that popular government is not a meaningless shibboleth, but a reality that has to be maintained and extended by fighting. He is well aware that he must deal with the House of Lords and the Plural vote if he is to gain his own ends. He can no longer regard these questions as difficulties interposed by half-hearted Liberals to distract attention from the Social problem. He is aware that the problem of Home Rule and of devolution generally is an integral part of the organization of democracy. And, as a rule, he not merely acquiesces in the demand of women for a purely political right, but only quarrels with the Liberal party for its tardiness in meeting the demand. The old Liberal idea of peace and retrenchment again is recognized by the Socialistic, and indeed by the whole body of social reformers, as equally essential for the successful prosecution of their aims. Popular budgets will bring no relief to human suffering if the revenues that they secure are all to go upon the most expensive ship that is the fashion of the moment, nor can the popular mind devote itself to the improvement of domestic conditions while it is distracted either by ambitions or by scares. On the other side, the Liberal who starts from the Gladstonian tradition has in large measure realized that if he is to maintain the essence of his old ideas it must be through a process of adaptation and growth. He has learnt that while Free Trade laid the foundations of prosperity it did not erect the building. He has to acknowledge that it has not solved the problems of unemployment, of underpayment, of overcrowding. He has to look deeper into the meaning of liberty and to take account of the bearing of actual conditions on the meaning of equality. As an apostle of peace and an opponent of swollen armaments, he has come to recognize that the expenditure of the social surplus upon the instruments of progress is the real alternative to its expenditure on the instruments of war. As a Temperance man he is coming to rely more on the indirect effect of social improvement on the one hand and the elimination of monopolist profit on the other, than on the uncertain chances of absolute prohibition.