and consigned it to oblivion when called upon to make good its 
sngagements. 
It was a combination of Liberals and Conservatives in the House of 
Commons which turned the Labour Government out of office in 1924. 
It was to ensure the return of a Conservative Government that the 
number of Liberal candidates was reduced at the election which 
followed, and that Liberal electors were urged to vote for Tory 
candidates, and, at any cost, to keep Labour out, 
The cost has proved, indeed, to be somewhat heavy, not only to 
the Liberal Party, but also—a more serious consideration—to the 
country as a whole, and it is not surprising that the Liberal 
leaders should be repudiating their Conservative allies to-day as 
eagerly as yesterday they embraced them. But fine words butter no 
parsnips, and the policy of Liberals is. to be judged, not by their 
professions, but by their performances. If a Conservative Government 
has mismanaged for four years the affairs of the nation, it is the Liberals 
whom it has to thank for presenting it with the opportunity, and it is the 
Liberals no less than the Conservatives on whom responsibility must 
rest for the disasters which have ensued. 
Liberalism’s Death-bed Repentance 
The approach of a General Election effects wonderful conversions. 
Having temporarily settled, after years of acrimonious controversy, the 
burning problem as to which of its contending fractions is to control its 
funds, the remnant of the Liberal Party has at length discovered that 
there are public questions which may deserve consideration. The 
progress of Labour has convinced it, it appears, that the indus- 
trial issue can no longer be evaded, with the result that after 
prolonged, if somewhat belated, inquiry, it has reached the impressive 
conclusion that the economic system is capable of improvement. In the 
tones of a man amazed at his own audacity, it has hinted that the 
individualist capitalism, on which throughout its history its policy has 
rested, may not always, after all, work wholly for the best. It has 
even ventured to express a tepid sympathy with measures of social 
and economic control which for long it repudiated, but which, thanks 
lo a generation of Labour research and Labour propaganda, have 
become part of the common currency of political thought. 
Blowing Hot and Cold 
It is gratifying to observe that some, at least, among the principles 
for which Labour has long stood, are endorsed, if reluctantly, by the 
Liberal Report. But, while admitting the disease, Liberalism still 
shrinks from recommending the indispensable remedy. Torn between 
its desire for working-class votes and its long-established connection 
with wealth and property, it has recoiled, with characteristic incon- 
sistency, from the logic of its own case against Capitalism, and persists 
in attempting to make the best of both worlds by denouncing 
““ Socialism ”’ while at the same time seeking to gather the fruits of 
Socialist policy, the seeds of which have been sown by the Labour 
Party. Itis significant, indeed, of the attitude of Liberals towards vital 
Industrial issues that even the glaring disorganisation of the Coal