with the splendid public spirit of the great metropolis of the Midlands, which is Unionist to the core, where Members are not regarded as milch-cows, and are expected to contribute perhaps £25 a year towards registration expenses, being practically never pestered for subscriptions. The Old Gang? THERE are other important questions worthy of Mr. Balfour's attention. There is widespread anxiety in the country lest a Unionist victory might be followed by the restoration of the old gang to the old places, which is highly prejudicial to the prospects of our Party, because, greatly as the present Cabinet stinks in the nostrils of the people, no one desires the reappearance of its predecessor, whose administrative ineptitude was largely, if not primarily, responsible for the débâcle four years ago, and ex hypothesi for the present perilous régime. Were the incoming Premier so ignorant of or so indifferent to public opinion as to surround himself with his former colleagues, their tenure of power would be short, and once more Unionism would be overtaken by an overwhelming catastrophe, and one from which it would probably not recover for a generation. As we have insisted, in season and out of season, the Unionist Party contains all the capacity necessary for the creation of a distinguished and efficient administration, provided the Cabinet be reduced to a reasonable number, and the doctrine "Once a Mandarin always a Mandarin" be ruthlessly discarded; but unfortunately there is reason to fear that the powers-that-be hardly realise the need for forming a competent Cabinet with a serious infusion of new blood, and the resurrection of the late lamentable Ministry, most of whom honestly believe that the country, clamours for their services, is "quite on the cards." Another Unionist anxiety which should be set at rest before the General Election is the sneaking sympathy for Woman Suffrage attributed to some of our Front Benchers. In the House of Commons among ex-Cabinet Ministers only Mr. Austen Chamberlain, Mr. Walter Long, and Mr. Chaplin, so far as we know, have had the courage to pronounce definitely against Suffragettes and Suffragists, though happily Lord Curzon, who is a tower of strength to any cause he espouses, is a convinced and keen opponent of a movement which is losing all serious hold on the Liberal Party, and would rapidly disappear from practical politics but for the hopes entertained by its partisans of Mr. Balfour, who is reputed at some time or other in the dim and distant past to have declared himself a Suffragist. Others maintain that the Unionist Leader has reconsidered his opinion, and that with the rest of the world he has been repelled by recent antics, which have demonstrated how utterly unfit for votes are the women who most want them. It is a very long time since he has uttered a single syllable on the subject. As the incorporation of Woman Suffrage in the Unionist programme would break up the Unionist Party, and as we have only just, after several years' dissensions, succeeded in healing our fiscal differences, we may hope to escape this new danger, but it is highly desirable that there should be a clear and authoritative pronouncement. Otherwise Unionist candidates may be tempted to give the usual meaningless, perfunctory pledges, which will be taken seriously by both "Gettes" and "Gists,” who will subsequently pretend that a national mandate has been given for Woman Suffrage, and will make its violation a pretext for treating the next Parliament and the next Government as they have treated the present Parliament and the present Government. The Issue ONCE again we have felt constrained to devote our entire space to the single topic which absorbs the British public, and has no inconsiderable interest outside the United Kingdom, upon whose fortunes, as upon the fortunes of the Empire, it is fraught with tremendous consequences. Were there any substratum of truth in the suggestion of "our own correspondent" in Radical newspapers that some Canadians and Australians sympathise with the financial policy of his Majesty's Ministers, it could only be because they are imperfectly informed both as to the contents and drift of the Budget, as also with regard to the aims and personality of its authors. Owing to the feebleness of the Prime Minister, which paralyses the moderate elements in the Cabinet, we need only consider Messrs. George and Churchill, who are being allowed to run away with the coach Mr. George has been born and bred in the straitest and most bitter school of Welsh Dissent, and his one animating idea is to pay off old scores upon those whom he has been taught from childhood to hate. The Land taxes, in whatever shape, are simply attractive to their author as instruments of class revenge. He hates England with all the fervour of the Welsh Celt, and if he can do the United Kingdom an injury he will. He is a bilious political partisanwho once declared that the Liberal Party was more important than the British Empire. He cares nothing for the welfare of the people, and all his Social enthusiasm is assumed as he mounts the platform. He is killing Liberalism with a view to raising on its ruins a Socialist-Irish NationalistLabour combination, of which he is bidding for the leadership against his twin demagogue, Mr. Churchill, who differs from Mr. Lloyd George in being the grandson of a duke-an accident to which he owes his start in life, and upon which he has always traded. Mr. Churchill is worse than Mr. George, because at any rate the latter has some regard-bitter, mistaken, harmful though it be-for the land of his birth, Wales, whereas Mr. Churchill is a self-centred adventurer, who has no regard for anything except himself and what will" pay" him at the moment. Shall the Mother Country pass under the domination of these demagogues, who are as hostile to the British Empire as they are to British Sea-power, and to everything that makes two little islands off the coast of Europe a great World-Power? That is the issue, and we refuse to believe that any intelligent and patriotic man in any part of Greater Britain who has any conception of the consequences of the demagogues' victory can wish them well, because he would be wishing ill to the whole Empire. That Germany should applaud them we understand. AMONG the many neglected topics of the past month is, in the first place, the reunion and the consolidation of the Unionist Party under the stress of Lloyd Georgeism. Lord Miscellaneous Hugh Cecil has urged his friends to support Tariff Reformers. Mr. Abel Smith has very patriotically and magnanimously withdrawn from East Hertfordshire, his Tariff Reform opponent, Mortimer, doing likewise in the interests of harmony. But in East Marylebone the position is bad. For the present difficulty no fair-minded Unionist can blame Lord Robert Cecil, who has done all that could be reasonably asked when he waived the original compact-which we always condemned-and agreed in the event of his finding himself unable to support the Unionist Tariff Reform Bill to place himself in the hands of the Party Whip. *** *** A man of his character and exceptional Parliamentary powers could hardly be asked to do more than this, which satisfied every responsible Tariff Reformer from Mr. Chamberlain downwards. Mr. Douglas Hogg, the Tariff Reform candidate in East Marylebone has very properly withdrawn. But the local hotheads insisted on starting another candidate, Mr. Richard Jebb, a man of great ability and disinterested enthusiasm, whose considerable talents would be far better employed in capturing a seat from the Radicals than in handing one over to them. The House of Lords, after endeavouring to lick into some semblance of shape various measures which the House of Commons had no time to discuss, has adjourned until November 8, when at last the Finance Bill is expected to "cross the corridor." Experts anticipate the "crisis " about the middle of the month. As regards foreign affairs, public attention has been divided between the increasingly grave crisis in Greece, where the chronic ineptitude and rottenness of Parliamentary government have called into existence a formidable Military League on the model of the Young Turks, which, provided it keeps its head, may conceivably give that unfortunate country a chance of regenerating itself; the visit of the Russian Emperor to the King of Italy, which it may be hoped will lead to a solid entente beyond the reach of mischief-makers; and the serious condition of Spain, partially caused by the Morocco expedition, which is attaining considerable proportions, and the sequel of the Barcelona riots in the execution of Señor Ferrer after a trial by court-martial. We have no right to say that this trial was unfair or the sentence unjust, for the simple reason that we do not know the facts. Nevertheless the execution was a signal for the mobilisation of "the rag, tag, and bobtail" of Europe, who made disgraceful demonstrations in France, Italy, and elsewhere. These foreign incidents unfortunately got " on the nerves" of Spanish politicians, and the Liberal Opposition withdrew its support from the Maura Cabinet, which forthwith collapsed, according to Spanish tradition. A strong Government under a strong man is succeeded by a colourless combination under a very eloquent man, Señor Moret. Whether he will be able to cope with the crisis remains to be seen. We shall hope to say something next month about Mr. E. T. Cook's delightful biography of Edmund Garrett (Edward Arnold). Meanwhile our readers should read it. *** TREASON IN HIGH PLACES PERHAPS the gravest of all the counts against the Liberal Ministry is that it has chosen to provoke a bitter internal conflict over the Budget at a moment when the whole energy of the British people should have been concentrated upon meeting the danger from without. For while the nation's entire attention is absorbed in the struggle over the Finance Bill, the rapid advance of the German Navy is passing almost unheeded by Parliament and the Press. A democracy by its very nature can only attend to one issue at a time, and Ministers have deliberately chosen to rivet the eyes of all on their Socialistic and predatory policy. They have deliberately stirred up class war and aggravated party animosity, thus making of the nation a "house divided against itself." As a French critic has pointed out, they have superadded to the foreign crisis of 1803 the domestic crisis of 1832. Yet the times in which we are living are times of extraordinary danger. Little more than a year has passed since the balance of power in the Balkans was violently disturbed. Less than a year has passed since Germany and Austria, by the use of the "mailed fist," compelled Russia to abandon Servia and brought British Balkan policy to naught. Not eight months have elapsed since Ministers told an awed and alarmed House of Commons that they had completely miscalculated the rate of progress of the German naval programme; that the German Government had so developed the power of rapidly constructing and arming "Dreadnoughts" as to place German shipbuilding yards on a footing of equality with, if not of superiority to, British yards; and that the entire British fleet would have to be reconstructed. Since those admissions were made, nothing has changed. Germany has not relaxed her efforts. On the contrary, her new ships have been pushed forward with remarkable |