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