before them; but the
star of South Africa is already in the ascendant, and I look
confidently forward to the time when it will take its place, united,
federated, free, beside Canada and Australia, in the shining
constellation of the British Empire.

When we have dealt with subjects which lie outside our own island, let
us concentrate our attention on what lies within it, because the
gravest problems lie at home. I shall venture to-night to make a few
general observations upon those larger trendings of events which
govern the incidents and the accidents of the hour. The fortunes and
the interests of Liberalism and Labour are inseparably interwoven;
they rise by the same forces, and in spite of similar obstacles, they
face the same enemies, they are affected by the same dangers, and the
history of the last thirty years shows quite clearly that their power
of influencing public affairs and of commanding national attention
fluctuate together. Together they are elevated, together they are
depressed, and any Tory reaction which swept the Liberal Party out of
power would assuredly work at least proportionate havoc in the ranks
of Labour. That may not be a very palatable truth, but it is a truth
none the less.

Labour! It is a great word. It moves the world, it comprises the
millions, it combines many men in many lands in the sympathy of a
common burden. Who has the right to speak for Labour? A good many
people arrogate to themselves the right to speak for Labour. How many
political Flibbertigibbets are there not running up and down the land
calling themselves the people of Great Britain, and the social
democracy, and the masses of the nation! But I am inclined to think,
so far as any body of organised opinion can claim the right to speak
for this immense portion of the human race, it is the trade unions
that more than any other organisation must be considered the
responsible and deputed representatives of Labour. They are the most
highly organised part of Labour; they are the most responsible part;
they are from day to day in contact with reality. They are not mere
visionaries or dreamers weaving airy Utopias out of tobacco smoke.
They are not political adventurers who are eager to remodel the world
by rule-of-thumb, who are proposing to make the infinite complexities
of scientific civilisation and the multitudinous phenomena of great
cities conform to a few barbarous formulas which any moderately
intelligent parrot could