_Sir FREDERICK BANBURY is speaking._ But it stands to reason, If you propose to pay them just the same Whether they write a little or a lot, They won't write _anything_. There will not be Sufficient stimulus. It's human nature, And human nature is unchangeable. Do you imagine, Sir, that KEATS or SHELLEY Would have produced such valuable work, So large an output, if this precious Bill Had been in operation at the time? We should have had no SHAKSPEARE. And, besides, It means the death of British poetry, Because we can't continue to compete With foreign countries. _A Labour Member._ I am not a lawyer Nor I am not a manufacturer, But earned my bread these five-and-forty years, Sweating and sweating. I know what sweat is.... _An Hon. Member._ You're not the only person who has sweated. _Labour Member._ At any rate I sweated more than you did. _Mr. SPEAKER._ I do not think these constant interruptions Are really helping us. _Labour Member._ So you may take it That what I utter is an honest word, A plain, blunt, honest and straightforward word, Neither adorned with worthless flummery And tricks of language--for I have no learning-- Nor yet with false and empty rhetoric Like lawyers' speeches. I am not a lawyer, I thank my stars that I am not a lawyer, And can without a spate of parleying Briefly expound, as I am doing now, The whole caboodle. As for this here Bill, So far as it means Nationalising verse, We shall support it. On the other hand, So far as it means interferences With the free liberty of working-men To write their poetry when and how they like, We will not _have_ the Bill. So now you know. _Mr. ASQUITH._ It was remarked, I think by ARISTOTLE, That wisdom is not always to the wise; To which opinion, if we may include In that august and jealous category The President of the Board of Ululation, I am prepared most freely to subscribe. When was there ever since the early Forties A more grotesque and shameless mockery Of the austere and holy principles Which Liberalism like an altar-flame Has guarded through the loose irreverent years Than this inept, this disingenuous, This frankly disingenuous attempt; To smuggle past the barrier of this House An article so plainly contraband As this unlicens'd and contagious Bill-- A Bill which, it is not too much to say, Insults the conscience of the British Empire? I will not longer, Sir, detain the House; Indeed I cannot profitably add To what I said in 1892. Speaking at Manchester I used these words:-- "If in the inconstant ferment of their minds The KING'S advisers can indeed discover No surer ground of principle than this; If we have here their final contribution