poses that
seventy is the earliest period in a man's life when his infirmities
may overwhelm him. We have not pretended to carry the toiler on to dry
land; it is beyond our power. What we have done is to strap a lifebelt
around him, whose buoyancy, aiding his own strenuous exertions, ought
to enable him to reach the shore.

And now I say to you Liberals of Scotland and Dundee two
words--"Diligence and Daring." Let that be your motto for the year
that is to come. "Few," it is written, "and evil are the days of man."
Soon, very soon, our brief lives will be lived. Soon, very soon, we
and our affairs will have passed away. Uncounted generations will
trample heedlessly upon our tombs. What is the use of living, if it be
not to strive for noble causes and to make this muddled world a better
place for those who will live in it after we are gone? How else can we
put ourselves in harmonious relation with the great verities and
consolations of the infinite and the eternal? And I avow my faith that
we are marching towards better days. Humanity will not be cast down.
We are going on--swinging bravely forward along the grand high
road--and already behind the distant mountains is the promise of the
sun.

THE SOCIAL FIELD

BIRMINGHAM, _January 13, 1909_[13]

(From _The Times_, by permission.)

I am very glad to come here to-night to wish good luck in the New Year
to the Liberals of Birmingham. Good luck is founded on good pluck, and
that is what I think you will not fail in. Birmingham Liberals have
for twenty years been over-weighted by the influence of remarkable men
and by the peculiar turn of events. This great city, which used to be
the home of militant Radicalism, which in former days supplied with
driving power the cause of natural representation against hereditary
privilege, has been captured by the foe. The banner of the House of
Lords has been flung out over the sons and grandsons of the men who
shook all England in the struggle for the great Reform Bill; and while
old injustice has but been replaced by new, while the miseries and the
privations of the poor continue in your streets, while the
differences between class and class have been even aggravated in the
passage of years, Birmingham is held by the enemy and bound to
retrogression in its crudest form.

But this is no time for despondency. The Liberal Party must not allow
itself to be overawed by the hostile Press which is ranged against it.
Boldly and