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commitment palls before the gratitude we should feel for her upholding the standard of integrity among nations, whose maintenance as an essential factor in the development of civilisation is now, at the beginning of our new career as the banker of the world, more vital to the continuing prosperity of our people than to that of any other.

'Our debt to England for proving the fidelity of our race, as distinguished thus far from others, to recognition of just obligations, is no more measurable in dollars than hers to us in honour.

'No doubt, as we are told persistently, it is our duty to help "the world"; but even obligations have degrees. Our first duty is to the one great country, that has established all Anglo-Saxons, our people no less than hers, as deservedly and unmistakably pre-eminent in financial integrity among the races of the earth.'

In the last three years the United States has experienced a time of unexampled prosperity. In the same period Great Britain has been passing through an economic depression which even if we search back to the post-Napoleonic war-period is without parallel. In such such circumstances sympathy between friends naturally is more openly expressed. Sympathy may always exist, but bad times bring it to the surface. The 'New York Times,' commenting * on Mr Baldwin's address to the Classical Association, had a leading article headed 'Ultimi Britanni.' The concluding paragraph is:

A phrase of Homer or the end of a chorus of Euripides does pluck at the heart-strings, as the Premier says, but they give a glory that is beyond all other guerdon to the human spirit that grips, as these "Ultimi Britanni" are doing, with the "toils of destiny itself." There is nothing more deserving of our admiration in the world around than their heroic, quiet struggle, led by a straight, truthful statesman who declines to take himself tragically and who is "steeped to the lips' in historical sense.'

Thus the great organ of moderate opinion in America stretches hands across the sea.

R. B. MOWAT.

* Jan. 10, 1926.

Art. 10.-THE PASSING OF THE LIBERAL PARTY.

THE recent secession of Sir Alfred Mond, coupled with other sinister movements, marks an important stage in the disintegration of the once great Liberal Party. That a party which for nearly fifty years in the 19th century was predominant in the State and, after its decline set in in 1885, remained until the Great War undoubtedly the second party; which in fact secured for itself the greatest of its election triumphs as recently as 1906, should be hastening to utter annihilation is the strangest phenomenon in contemporary politics. Strange, too, it may seem that the defection of Sir Alfred Mond should have shaken the Liberal Party to its foundations. He is just the sort of man who, in the palmy days of Liberalism, one would have expected to find a prominent member of that party. A wealthy man but not of British descent, he would hardly have had, in years gone by, much chance of distinction among the Conservatives. His ability and wealth made him an ornament to Liberalism. But with ability and wealth he also possesses political courage and honesty, and his defection proves conclusively that a particularly capable and clear-sighted politician can see no hope either for the country or for his own future in modern Liberalism.

The position of the Liberal Party is indeed tragic. Reduced to a rump of about forty members in the House of Commons, they are hopelessly divided among themselves. Their nominal leader is Lord Oxford and Asquith, whose defects in leadership have contributed largely to their ruin; their nominal Chairman in the House of Commons is Mr Lloyd George, whose clever but disruptive personality has, more than anything else, blown them to atoms. Notwithstanding his services in the War, indeed largely because of them, more than half his nominal followers hate and distrust Mr Lloyd George, while nearly all those Liberals who in the past attached themselves to him are visibly anxious to find some pretext for following the lead of Sir Alfred Mond. The Liberal Party could boast of about three million electors in the country at the last general election: how many of these are prepared to support it now? Many un

doubtedly will join the Conservative Party, others will go to Labour. New recruits cannot be looked for. No young man with political ambition can be expected to join a moribund party.

The real explanation of this extraordinary political eclipse is to be found, not so much in the incompetent leadership of Lord Oxford and his friends or in the disruptive tactics of Mr Lloyd George, however much they may have contributed to it, but in the simple fact that the day of Liberalism is over, that the party has no longer any 'raison d'être.' The conditions under which it arose and flourished have entirely disappeared. The Liberal Party was a temporary product of the 19th century. It was formed out of two distinct and separate bodies. The older of these were the Whigs, the lineal descendants of the Roundheads of Charles the First's day, who, later on, had brought about the Hanoverian succession. Against them were arrayed the old Tories, lineal descendants of the Cavaliers, who for the most part had been Jacobites until the accession of George III. The Whigs had carried the great Reform Act of 1832, and had thereby won a signal though belated triumph over the Tories. This party, with its Puritan traditions, naturally attracted to itself the Nonconformist elements in the country, and later on the 'political dissenter' became a power in the land on the Liberal side. The other and newer body were the Radicals, who aimed at far more drastic political change than had been achieved by the Whigs in 1832, their left wing being the supporters of the great Charter of 1848. This party adopted the commercial policy of free imports, their real leaders being Cobden and Bright, and the 'Manchester School' of politicians, and their philosopher and high priest John Stuart Mill. Confronted with the Conservative Party, formed by Sir Robert Peel out of the old Tories, they were further reinforced by the accession of the Peelites, who left the Conservatives on the Free Trade question. With them came Gladstone, the fine flower of Liberalism, under whom the party reached its zenith. In this new party the Radicals, who had a clearly defined policy, made the pace, the Whigs lumbering slowly behind them, but always controlling the party organisation and the party purse.

So far as Home affairs were concerned, the Liberal policy as expounded by the Radicals was one of complete freedom from political restraint and of 'laissez-faire' in trade, commerce, and social relationships. 'Free the people from all political handicaps and restraints,' they said, 'free trade from all shackles and impediments, and all will be for the best in the best of all possible worlds.' The circumstances of the middle of the 19th century were entirely favourable to their views. Political reform had been delayed too long in this country, and a great democratic wave appeared to be spreading over the Continent of Europe. Moreover, the industrial system had just been established here; there was a great expansion of trade and manufacture, and an immense increase of population. Free imports meant cheaper food for the people, and cheaper raw material for our factories, and the doctrines of Mill and Cobden appeared to be eminently suited to the condition of England at the time. The idea that the people should be free to govern themselves, that trade should be freed from all restrictions, that Government interference in commerce and in all the social relations of life should be reduced to a minimum, appealed to the majority at that time, who were told by the Liberal leaders that somehow or other the greatest happiness of the greatest number would ensue. They did not worry themselves about the smaller number, whose lot apparently might be one of utter wretchedness. Has not Mr Birrell, a true Liberal, told us in recent years that minorities must suffer? In the 'sixties and 'seventies they nearly reached Herbert Spencer's ideal of government, which has been described as 'Anarchy plus the Policeman.' If everybody, peer and peasant, employer and employee, landlord and tenant, were allowed to pursue a policy of enlightened self-interest, free from all government interference and control, all, they believed, would be well. Wealth they thought was the only road to happiness, man being exclusively a money-making machine.

With regard to foreign and colonial affairs, their policy was not so simple, since in these departments of Government the Whigs did not allow the Radical Free Traders to have it all their own way. The policy of the latter indeed was simplicity itself. It may be summed

up in the one word-non-intervention. Cobden and his friends wished to keep England entirely free from all foreign complications and alliances, being convinced that free trade would by itself produce good will among nations, and that its advantages were so patent that every foreign nation would adopt it in a few years' time. They made no allowance for the entirely different conditions existing on the Continent. They had a grand conceit of the immense superiority of Englishmen over all foreigners, whom they regarded chiefly as customers for our manufactures, and to whom they wished such a measure of prosperity as would enable them to purchase from us on a satisfactory scale. Their policy was at least simple and straightforward, and it enabled them to be consistent opponents of war and armaments, and advocates of rigid economy in the great spending departments. 'Peace at any Price' was their motto, or at least the motto of most of them, and they rallied round their banner all the fanatics and Little Englanders' in the country. For the British Colonies they had little use; they regarded them merely as customers on a small scale, who would inevitably remain customers even if they ceased to belong to the Empire. For the rest they thought them a nuisance entailing serious naval and military responsibilities, and they longed for the day when they would, as the phrase went, 'cut the painter.' This policy of non-intervention, had it been consistently carried out, would probably have landed the country in grave disaster later on, since the position of England and her security have always depended on preventing any one power becoming predominant in Europe. For this reason we had fought Spain and France in the past, and were compelled to fight Germany in 1914. It was combined, however, with another policy, which was the special policy of the Whigs, and the alternations between the two made 'Liberal' foreign policy almost a byword of ineptitude and inefficiency all over the world.

The Whig foreign policy consisted in the idea of supporting what they regarded as 'Liberalism' all over Europe, and anywhere else in the world. Now, European 'Liberalism' was a striving after nationalism and unity on national lines, which the Whigs fondly believed would result in the setting up of a number of States with