Evening Post. MONDAY, NOVEMBER 26, 1923. THE LIBERAL REUNION

Evening Post, Volume CVI, Issue 127, 26 November 1923, Page 6

Evening Post. MONDAY, NOVEMBER 26, 1923. THE LIBERAL REUNION

The rescission of "the resolution which forbade the hanging of portraits of Mr. Lloyd George and Mr. Winston Churchill in the National Liberal Club has been followed by a still more striking demonstration of Liberal reunion. Mr. Lloyd George and Mr. Asquith have actually appeared on the same platform. The two men who had been the chief" causes, both of the Liberal Party's nine continuous years of power, which were only terminated in 1915 by the first of the War Coalitions, and of its ignominious collapse at the General Election last year, are united once again after their bitter estrangement. As so often happens in such cases, the personal differences of the leaders have presented a much more serious obstacle to their respective followers than any dividing line of principle. All the ordinary controversies of politics were in abeyance when the two men parted company at the end of 1916. A more vigorous prosecution of th.c war was needed than Mr. Asquith was able to provide, and Mr. Lloyd George, who was obviously the most powerful force in the Cabinet, was put in his place. After the second Coalition had been dissolved, there was little but their personal quarrel on a dead issue to keep the two leaders apart, but it still rankled enough to divide the Liberal forces and to involve them in almost unprecedented disaster at the elections in November last.

The Liberals have to thank _a Conservative Government for the chance that is now presented of retrieving their broken fortunes: Their enemy has been their helper. Ihe basis of union for which their managers had sought i$ vain has been supplied by the' issue on which Mr. Baldwin has made his sudden appeal to the. country. It was the attack on Free. Trade that gave the Liberals their wonderful majority of 354 in. 1900. The raising of the same issue by the present Government has inspired them with the hope, not of any such majority as that, nor even of any majority at all, but at least of a partial recovery from the impotence to which they were reduced a year ago. The. Asquith Liberals only won 59 seats on that occasion, and the Lloyd George ' Liberals the same'number, The Conservatives •exceeded the combined Liberal strength by about three to one, and Labour, with a total of 142 became the Official Opposition.' That the healing of the Liberals' dissensions will even put them into the second place is by no means certain. The raising of the fiscal issue would, i generally speaking, suit the Labour Party just as well as it suits the Liberals, and if on this occasion the Liberals have welcomed it the more eagerly, it is because from their desperate position they stood in greater need of comfort.

On what terms the rival Liberal leaders have agreed to co-operate we are not told. The circumstances are such that the prospect of Cab-inet-making need not have given them much trouble. To the electors at any rate they offer, as Mr. Asquith said at Paisley, "a united front and defence on a vital principle." He pointed to Mr. Lloyd George's presence as " sufficient and conclusive evidence that they were one," and in his turn Mr. Lloyd George declared that he was " infinitely glad to be on the same platform with Mr. Asquith." There is no need to question the sincerity of this remark. Mr., Lloyd George was in the limelight at the last General Election, but he was without a policy, and he had friends to fight as well as foes, and he came a cropper. After that he never saw the limelight again till he landed in New York. For a few happyweeks Mr. Lloyd George made the most of his opportunities, and he found the limelight in'full blaze for him at Southampton on his return. Mr. Baldwin's decision had given him a policy, a party, and an opportunity for the full exercise of his great powers. Mr. Lloyd George's sword was in his hand again, and there was really something for him to hit.

The great tactical advantage which has thus been given to the Liberals induced even the Conservative prophets to make very pessimistic estimates of the Government's chances, but their spirits are reviving. Though! the Liberals have been reunited, contest will still be triangular, and the Conservatives may again win by a minority vote. The "Observer," which was among the prophets of evil, now declares that " all the headquarters not only profess confidence but feel it," and it speaks of Mr. Asquith's position at Paisley and Mr. Churchill's at Leicester as " none too safe." Liberal reunion has a partial set-off on the other side in the reconciliation of Mr. Austen Chamberlain and Lord Birkenhead. They had never seceded formally from the Conservative Party, nor are they actually in the Cabinet now, but the immediate failure to find them portfolios has not proved incompatible with an arrangement which gives the

party the full benefit of their platform support. The prominence which the Labour Party is giving to the Capital levy must also be playing into the hands of the Government. Instead of confirming Mr. Wells's description of him as " a little man who has lost his head," Mr. Baldwin appears to be holding up his end very well, and he may yet worry through. But it " to be hoped that no drastic change in the tariff systems of Great Britain or the Empire will ever be based on the ricketty foundation of a minority vote.