SERIOUS SPLIT.

Auckland Star, Volume LXII, Issue 151, 29 June 1931, Page 7

SERIOUS SPLIT.

BRITISH LIBERALS. Members Object to Servility To Socialism. SIR JOHN SIMON RESIGNS. (United P.A.-Electric Telegraph—Copyright) (Received 11 a.m.) LONDON, June 28* The Liberal party, it is expected, ! will be definitely split by the announcement that about 12 members of the House of Commons, headed by Sir John Simon and Sir Robert Hutchinson, formerly the Liberal Chief Whip, are breaking away from Mr. Lloyd George oAving to their dislike of the alliance with the Labour party. It is believed they will form an independent Liberal group. Sir John Simon's letter of resignation declares that the Liberals reached the lowest depths of humiliation in the House of Commons on June 24 by stifling their conscience and allowing double taxation on land values for fear of the consequences. Mr. Ernest Brown (Lib., Leith), in his letter of resignation, eays that Mr. Snowden rubbed the noses of those cooperating with him in the mud, a persistence in which Avould destroy a party once great. Sir Robert Hutchinson, in announcing his resignation, states that he declines to act longer Avith a party showing such servility to Socialism. Mr. Lloyd George refuses to comment on the resignations. Sir John Simon, who is regarded by many as one of the strongest members of the Liberal party, first entered Parliament ae an advanced Liberal in 1906. Asquith made him Solocitor-General in 1919, when he was knighted, and three years later gave him the post of AttorneyGeneral, Avith a seat in the Cabinet. When the first Coalition was formed in 1915 he was offered the Lord Cnancellorship, the highest legal prize in the country, but he declined it for the portfolio of Home Secretary. In 1917 he took the side of Asquith on the occasion of a split between the latter and Lloyd George. On his return from a visit to the Viceroy of India, Lord Reading, in 1926, there Avas some talk of his being asked to assume the leadership of the Liberal party in succession to Lloyd George. He looked askance at his leader's land policy, but nevertheless did not seek a split. From 1927-1930 he Avas engaged on the Simon Commission on India, and since has supported Lloyd George's great scheme to remedy unemployment.