Another Liberal Deserts.

Press, Volume LXII, Issue 18624, 24 February 1926, Page 8

Another Liberal Deserts.

Commander Hilton Young's secession i from the ■ Liberal Plarty, coming so [soon after Sir Alfred Mond's, will start people asking* again how much [ longer the Liberals will survive. In ! both cases the announced reason of the desertion is that the Party is heading towards Socialism, and "stock it must head Left or Bight or die in the middle of the r/oad, its future is still the big question of British politics. One of the pathetic proofs of the Party's decline and fall was "supplied recently by tfoe "Nation," which set : out to show in four long articles that there is still a place for the Liberals as political* make-weights to Labour. The " Nation's" argument is simple enough. The country must get back to two Parties, each strong enough to assume in turjn. the full responsibilities of office; and since neither the Liberals nor Labour can expect, as they are now constituted, to win a Parliamentary majority, " Tory dominance " will remain "an established thing" without a Liberal-Labour Coalition. The "Nation" does not advocate Fusion —mainly because a* Coalition would be a dangerous enough experiment to begin with. It allows for 11 the possi- " bility of closer relations still," but knows that to urge them at this stage would cause an uproar, and to attempt to establish them send Liberals in shoals to Mr Baldwin; and when the "Nation's" articles were written neither Sir Alfred Mond nor Commander Hilton Young ba'd shown humbler Liberals the way. But the "Nation" is even more interesting in the facts it concedes than in the solutions it recommends. For example, it agrees that there is "much nonsense "talked about the natural affinity of "Liberalism and Labour, and the im- " morality of any dealings with Con- " servatism." It recommends a Coalition with Labour as the only practicable method of "re-establishing the "old balance of power between Bight "and Left," but only after admitting that an examination " in sober truth " of the three Parties as they stand today, "with all their imperfections on " their heads, with the doctrines that 0 they preach, and the diverse elements " that go to make them up," will show as many reasons for turning Right as Left. And those Liberals in this country who suppose that the way out of their difficulties lies through Promotional Representation will get a shock if they read the first article in i the series pleading for a return to the!

two-Party system. Instead of expressing any kind of sympathy for a system that would " unquestkmaLly ensure "their future as an important Party," the "Nation" calls on Liberals to i facilitate a return to, the system that has saved Britain from nearly all the dangers and evils of the Continental ! group system, and has given her most j of the advantages of ail other systems combined—the efficiency and firmness and coherence of purpose of the best type of autocratic rule; most of the advantages, without any of the disadvantages, of occasional revolution; a constant sensitiveness on the part of her Governments to public opinion; and finally, and especially, the educative effect of tie system upon public opinion itself, as shown in the greater fairness, restraint, and reasonableness of individual and Party criticism. The "Nation" iaa short condemns the multiplication of Parties in much the same language as our readers have had from ourselves* and it is not a little remarkable that it should do so in the Party's present 'position.