DEFENCE OF LIBERALS

Evening Post, Volume CVII, Issue 131, 4 June 1924, Page 14

DEFENCE OF LIBERALS

PREMIER'S FALL FROM IKB

CLOUDS

WEARY HEAKTS BUT WISER

HEADS.

(PROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT.)

LONDON, 6th March. Mr. Lloyd George defended the policy of the Liberal Party in the House of Commons at a meeting arranged by the Northern Liberal Federation. It had been contended, he said, that because the Liberals helped the Socialists to turn out a Conservative Administration, they were committed to a Socialist direction of affairs. That was absurd. The ToryGovernment, which was expelled from office, would go down to history as the most futile, weak, and inept Administratration that this country had seen sirica the. eighteenth century. East and West they sacrificed British interests and lowered British prestige. Not in modern times _ had we exercised so little influence in the councils of the world. Through. sheer inepitude they broke up the Entente, and substituted nothingelse for it. . °

The men who,, by the working of the Constitution, should come nest were, it was true, men of little or no experience in Government. Even with that they could not be worse than their predecessors, and there was every chance they might be better. If the Government were, in a moment of sheer folly, to propose a capital levy, or measures for the overthrow of private enterprise, the whole of the Liberal Party would vote against them without regard to the ef-. feet on the fortunes of the Government. Liberals were free to criticise, to ensure, to condemn, as well as to approve and to support. Coalition had been rejected by public opinion. ' To-day it might be the Socialist Government which was-propped up by these .shifting buttresses. To-morrow it might lie,a Liberal or a Conservative Government. It might all have one salutary effect—that it strengthened the independence and the influence of the House of Comomns. In conditions of that kind the House became paramount. Mr. Asquith took the only course which it was possible for a Liberal leader to take, not merely in the interests Of Liberalism but in the interests of the country. Tolerance, forbearance, and even sympathy were essential to enable any Government under present Parliamentary conditions to carry on its ordinary duties; and when one bore in mind the anxious situation at Home and abroad, it rendered it all the more incumbent upon them to be indulgent in their criticism.

AIR SQUADRON OF SOCIALISM.. It was fust like the luck of Britain that the first experiment in a Socialist Administration had come under conditions where it could do the least harm I'rom the plough one single rock or root, which could not have been seen from the clouds, held them up. He was all for leaving the Labour Government for some time between the handles of ithe plough. They would soon have aching backs and weary hearts, but very much wiser heads.

Mr. Ramsay MacDonald, the principal aviator in the air squadron of Socialism, had spent most of his lifetime in displaying his skill among the great white clouds-of. Socialist, idealism. He was quite a changed man since he joined the infantry and had had to trudge alon* mother earth carrying his knapsack" AVhen he heard his first speech as Prime Minister, he thought,he must have been dreaming. All the restraints and reservations and compromises which mundane statesmen had hitherto indulged in were repeated in every particular. Ihe duty of Liberalism was clear It was to lead the nation along the lines of ,sane and steady progress. Without Liberalism, there would have been no great central party to check violent swings from right to left, and from left to right. Now more than ever was it vital to the well-being of this land that ■Liberal sentiment should be strengthened and mobilised, for it had to fight a battle on two fronts for the.safety and well-being of the people of Britain