Evening Post. THURSDAY, DECEMBER 16, 1926. LIBERAL PARTY'S PLIGHT

Evening Post, Volume CXII, Issue 145, 16 December 1926, Page 8

Evening Post. THURSDAY, DECEMBER 16, 1926. LIBERAL PARTY'S PLIGHT

On the 7th December, 1916, Mr. Lloyd' George became Prime Minister in succession to' Mr. Asquith, and asi the head of a Coalition which included all the Conservatives and a considerable section of the Liberals he piloted the nation through, nearly, two years of war and four years of peace. A part of the price which he had to pay for helping to save the nation was the wrecking of his party. At die i"Khak»' election of 1918 the glamour of the Armistice which had been signed a few weeks previously enabled the Coalition to carry all before it. In a Housse of 707 it was given a majority of 249, to which the "National Liberals" who followed Mr. Lloyd George contributed 131, while Mr. | Asquith himself lost his seat and his followers, reduced to 33, acquired the title of "Wee Frees." Evem after the Conservatives had broken up the Coalition, the two sec- ! tions of the Liberals fought the General of 1922 as separate parties. In 1923 the injudicious raising of the tariff issue by the Conservatives brought about the semblance of Liberal unity, but the separate organisations were nevertheless maintained. Mr. Lloyd George retained the sole control of the; immense party fund which he had acquired, during the regime of the Coalition, and the old bickerings and suspicions continued. Under the impulse of Free Trade the nominally united Liberals won 193 seats .in 1923, but their.1 strength was reduced in, the following year to 40—almost the "Wee Free" level, and in this handful there were a few who from the first declined to recognise Mr. Lloyd George as their Parliamentary leader. TJie which during the last ten years have paralysed the | Liberal Party appeared to have reached a climax in the General Strike. On the ground that the success of the strike would have marked the end of Parliamentary government, Mr. Asquith, who had, meanwhile been raised to the peerage as Lord Oxford, gave the Government his unqualified support. Mr. Lloyd George not only advocated a compromise, but declined his chief's invitation to discuss the matter at a meeting of the party leaders, The severe censure which Lord Oxford thereupon publicly pronounced on his colleague received the hearty support of nearly all the frontbench Liberals, but it was .riot endorsed by the rank and file, nor by far the greater part of the party Press. In the substance of his censure Lord Oxford was, in our opinion, absolutely right. A man who could treat loyalty to the Constitution and loyalty to his colleagues as lightly as Mr. Lloyd George did during the General Strike deserved every word that Lord Oxford had to say about him. But the fact that the party took a different view meant that the public pronouncement was a tactical blunder, and Lord Oxford has had to pay the penalty. Failing to eject Mr. Lloyd George and declining to take "any part, direct or indirect, in sectional controversies," Lord Oxford has himself retired from the leadership of the Liberal Party. Had the feuds which ha.ye wrecked the party been in any sense a personal matter on Lord Oxford's^side, his resignation might have brought -peace. But few, if any, of his critics, either inside the party or out of it, have failed to recognise that, whether right or wrong, he was actuated by entirely impersonal and disinterested motives. In so far as the .trouble was personal before, it is personal still. The personality of Mr. Lloyd George, which has been at the root of the trouble, is still there. For those who during the last ten years have learned to distrust him whether as friend or foe, Mr. Lloyd George's personality is an absolute disqualification which the elimination of Lord Oxford from the competition fails to touch; The striking speech of Lord Grey which was reported yesterday makes this perfectly plain. A man who is as judicial and as impersonal in his judgments as Lord Oxford himself, and to whom polemics are much more distasteful than to him, declares that unity is as far off as ever because the element of personal confidence is lacking. To justify his distrust, Lord Grey sketches the series of differences'.to which we have referred, laying special, stress on the' 1924 campaign "when Mr. Lloyd George disclosed an extraordinary and unexpected desire not to put up the full number of Liberal candidates." In 1923 Mr. Lloyd George had generously put £100,000 from his private fund at the disposal of the party. In 1924, as Lord Gladstone has stated, Mr. Lloyd George

thought £50,000 should suffice, held even (hat amount back till it was "too late for practical purposes,'* and came so near enforcing his astonishing idea that "300 candidates were sufficient for the election" that his colleagues had to ho content with what Lord Gladstone calls "the sorry total of 343." It is not surprising that Lord Grey I should regard such a man as disqualified to bo either the confidant of self-respecting colleagues or paymaster of a great party. It is now suggested, ho snya, that wo shall again como together upon a fooling of mutual trust that is absolutely impossible. Confidence Ims boon destroyed. Wo feel, it impossible to j keep step with Mr. Lloyd George, because in a very short timo ho would cliango his step. There are already instances of this. I do not Hlco tho suggestion that the Liberals should aim at tho next election to obtain tho balance of power in Parliament and insist upon I terms with the Labourites. . . . It ] is unprecedented in British politics for one man to control his owii fund for political purposes. Tho disposal of that fund to-day agitates tho Liberals/ Tomorrow it might agitato tho Conservatives or tho Labourites. Whatever tho result of the negotiations regarding tho fund, wo shall stand outsido thorn, Yes, Lord Grey and hia friends will bo wise to leave those negotiations to others, and it would he well for the Liberal Party if all of its members were of the same mind. Bui: with no other inspiring leader in sight they seem determined to give a trial to one whose brilliant eloquence and personal • charm are acknowledged even by his enemies, but who cannot inspire even his friends with the confidence which is the root of the matter. Better an uninspired leader than one who inspires universal mistrust.