PROSPECTS OF LIBERALISM IN ENGLAND.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XLII, Issue XLII, 14 April 1908, Page 2

PROSPECTS OF LIBERALISM IN ENGLAND.

The appended notice with- comments - appears in the "Sydney Daily Tele. I graph" :— An unrestrained denunciation - of the present Liberal Government m 3 England comes from the pen of A 3 Radical Stalwart," writing in the ,£f* . t tional Review," under the title of me , Coming Liberal Debacle." The con- - tributor can see no prospect of the <jo- . vernment surviving for any length ot . time. He quotes the Government defeats . at the by-elections of Brigg, Mid Devon, ! Hereford, Jarrow, and Colne Valley, as . symptomatic of the larger defeats in , store, and if his article had been delayed ■ a few weeks longer he might have men- , tioned the Liberal defeat at Peckham al. , so But it must not be forgotten that Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman had a majority of 200 to start with. Such a majority will stand a lot of battering at. The contributor argues that the Government has ranged the clergy in opposition to them by bringing forward a new Education Bill that still leaves the religious difficulty unredressed, and has antagonised the liquor trade by its Licensing Bill. The prospect of an "unholy alliance" between the Church and the' liquor trade for the discomfiture of Liberalism seems somewhat cf a bogey. In Australia, at any rate, neither secular education nor legislative restriction on the liquor trade has injured the cause cf Liberalism. In the "National Review" article the writer blames the Gov.rnmcnl For ti^.^lectixifr the unemployed , and h e . rates Mr John Bums as the "incarnation of stiff, unbending authority, of law and order, indifferent to human suffering" — an accusation which casts serious doubt over the genuineness of thp contributor's claim to be a "Radical Stalwart." "The Labour Party," he writes, "offers Socialism, the Conservatives promise tariff reform; thp future is between theso two. A Liberal Government that professes its chief business is Ii maintain frcetrade, in other words, to ki—p things .".s thoy are. is out of date; mid t!i-.» wiiuiug debacle will ree not only the mrst disappointing Ministry of mod- - . •*>.-_•. -=-saHS^_s_sE__g

em times, but the utter disintegration., of a party that has outlived dts usefulness." The article defeats its object by its exaggerations. British Liberalism showed itself to be so intensely alive in the constituencies three years ago thaft it can hardy be dead for ever, as this writer would lead us to believe. The hajid is the hand of a "Radical Stalwart," but the vocio is singularly like that of tariff-reform Toryism trying to disguise itself.