LIBERAL PROSPECTS

Evening Post, Volume LXXXV, Issue 21, 25 January 1913, Page 14

LIBERAL PROSPECTS

MR. KEIR HARDIES PREDICTION. A prophecy that the Government will continue in power another two years was made at Nelson (Lancashire) recently, by Mr. Keir Hardie, M.P. It was a matter of common knowledge, he said, that when the House of Commons adjourned last August the spirits of, the Liberal party in the House were at a low ebb. There was a feeling of uncertainty, of not knowing exactly what was going to happen. The Conservative party were jubilant; they made it an open boast that they would have the Government out before Christmas, and that at the General Election they themselves wbuld be returned to power. ■Now the feeling was alLthe other way. The Liberals- in Parliament had recovered their spirits. They had got over the confusion oreated by the, snap division, and it was on the Tory side now where them was depression, of spirits and a, good deal of demoralisation. It was a practical certainty now that, barring accidents, there would be no General Election before the end of 1914 or in the early months of 1915. Turning to women's suffrage, Mr. Hardie said he had a fairly strong belief that before the present session came to an end a good _ democratic amendment for the enfranchisement" of women would be carried to the Franchise Reform Bill, and votes for women be an accomplished fact.