Sri Aurobindo
Karmayogin
Political Writings and Speeches — 1909-1910
Karmayogin: A Weekly Review
Saturday 6th November 1909 — No.18
Facts and Opinions
The Budget
It is curious that England which was, a little while ago, the most conservative and individualistic of nations, the least forward in the race towards socialism, should now be the foremost.
The socialistic Radical, the forerunner of insurgent Leviathan, is in 
the Cabinet and has framed a Budget.
The Budget is the pivot on which English progress has turned from the beginning.
The power of the purse in the hands of the Commons has been the chief lever for the gradual erection of a limited democracy.
The same power is now being used for the gradual introduction of a modified socialism, and, by a curious provision of Fate, seems destined to be also the occasion for the final destruction of one at least of the two remaining restrictions on democracy, the veto of the Lords and the limitation of the suffrage.
The Lords were bound to oppose the Budget, for the triumph of socialism means the destruction of the aristocracy.
The Lords, therefore, have either to fight or to fall; and the pathos of their situation is that, in all probability, the choice is not theirs and that, whether they fight or not, they cannot but fall.
The Lords have only continued to exist because they were discreet enough to lie low and give a minimum of trouble.
As for the limitation of the suffrage, it is not at all unlikely that the daring and unscrupulous campaign of the suffragettes may end in the concession of universal suffrage.
For, if women are given the vote, the proletariate will not be content to remain without it.
They too can lift crowbars and hammers and break glass roofs!