THE LITTLENESS OF THE LEADERS.

Evening Post, Volume XC, Issue 92, 16 October 1915, Page 14

THE LITTLENESS OF THE LEADERS.

— ♦ The Liberal Daily Chronicle — which has, of course, a brief to defend the Liberal administration — dqes not agree with the strictures on Ministers and Parliament contained in Mr. F. S. Oliver's "Ordeal by Battle." The Chronicle says thafc Mr. Oliver regards contemporary politics as a petty affair of little men, and Parliament marred by two chief factors — excessive party spirit and v the predominance of lawyers. These are doubtless the views of many 'men in the street' ; but will they stand testing ? * "History does not at all confirm th« idea that Parliament sinks lowest when party spirit runs highest; and the more it is probed the less it will show, we think, that the 'giants' of the British Parliamentary past were generically the superiors, or even the equals, of those to-day as administrators or as practical men. ' "The political prominence of the barrister in the last two decades is certainly a new phenomenon. But the faults which Mr. Oliver attributes to the barrister in politics are much more those of the old Parliamentary hand. The vivid and unflattering sketch of Mr Asquith, which he gives by way of illustration, can in almost every detail be far more plausibly applied to Mr. Balfour."