man earns only £50 per annum, and has an average family of two children, let me ask what remains after this call has been met? Nothing. And if he has to pay taxes, he and his family are obliged to go without a sufficiency of clothing, or without a fitting home. Now look at the case of a man with £50,000 per annum, and with a family of the same size. He pays in taxation about 4½% on his income---let us say 5%. This absorbs £2500. He may secure to himself and them not only all necessaries, but all comforts, for £500 per annum. Surely the sacrifice on his part to the exigencies of the State of £7000 per annum would not be so great a one as would be that of £2, 10s. per annum by the man with an income of £50 per annum. As a matter of fact, however, the rich man pays at present a maximum of 5%, and the poor man about twice that percentage...." He made a speech in the Radical Club at North Camberwell on November 14, 1885, in which he once more resumed his creed, and with it I must end this chapter, so as to proceed with the history of the practice to which he put his theories. "In the House of Commons," he said, "Radicals had hitherto been in a very small minority, and were not appreciated, and it was therefore gratifying to him as a strong Radical to find what they did in the House of Commons was appreciated by those who made the House of Commons. For his own part he was bound to say he could not form any clear idea of what 'Conservative' meant now. In the past, Conservatives {248} were a party banded together to support the landed interest, but Lord Randolph Churchill told them that this was to be all forgotten, and that the Conservatives were to become Tory Democrats. These two words were utterly antagonistic in themselves, and he could not understand how men could be fish and fowl at the same time. The only principle which was guiding the Tories was to get into office and remain there. No reasonable man could become a Conservative. As for the Whigs they were more dangerous than the Tories. There were about thirty of them in the House of Commons. They rarely spoke, but their influence--a backstair influence--was such that Ministers yielded to them, and it was to them that the action in Egypt was due, and they were the cause of the Crimes Bill in Ireland--both of which had been steadfastly opposed by the Radicals in Parliament. It was easier to deal with an open enemy than with a traitor in the camp. Happily the Whigs were expiring, and he did not think any one would care to adopt their creed. Coming to the Radical creed he said it was that England should become a democracy, by which was meant the rule of the people by the people and for the people. He was surprised statesmen could not see that the people would use the power given them for their own advantage. They would insist on a Government not mixed, as now, with an aristocratic element in it. They would deal with the entire