phantly together, they would hardly have been sympathetic the one with the other. Mr Lloyd George has been always far too deeply interested in his own career and what he called his own stunts to work well with anybody, and even Lord Oxford and Asquith's indolence can be strained too far. In friendships which were never disinterested and which have ceased to be profitable, the breaking-point comes suddenly and inevitably. When you search for a cause of the rupture you will find only a pretext. For many a year Mr Lloyd George and Lord Oxford and Asquith must have been on the verge of a quarrel, and when it came, neither the one nor the other could tell why it had been so long deferred. There was once a distinguished French writer who had played écarté every night at his café with a certain friend. One night the friend, suspecting no evil, asked for cards. The distinguished writer cried out, Cards ! you may have as many as you like; you may have the whole pack," and incontinently flung all the cards in his friend's face. Neither the one nor the other of the two could have explained why they parted thus suddenly and for ever. But the moment of severance came, as it came to our two eminent Liberals, and there was never a chance for a reconciliation.

The conduct of the squabble, which was foreordained, did not reflect much credit upon

either of the combatants. Lord Oxford and Asquith's letter in admonition of his colleague went beyond the permitted limits of pomposity. Mr Lloyd George's delinquencies were far too light to merit so lofty a reproof. The hardy Welshman had dared to absent himself from a meeting of the Shadow Cabinet. He had also assumed a critical attitude towards Mr Baldwin's conduct of the strike. Still worse, he had done his best to degrade his own country in the columns of Mr Hearst's deplorable rag, and he had proved himself a very bad prophet of evil. But these and many other sins he had been committing for many a year, and we repeat that the two colleagues reached the breaking-point of their amity as if by accident.

And when the severance seemed complete, each looked about for arguments which might bolster up a tottering case. Mr Lloyd George, who had been dressed down by his leader in such terms as a headmaster might use in talking to a truant schoolboy, answered, as he might be expected to answer, with a certain justified insolence, and without carrying conviction to his readers. And then, as the dispute went on, the combatants revealed the old grievances one by one one by which had long been rankling in the simple hearts of our serious Liberals. Above all, there was the question of money. Mr Lloyd George is the proud possessor of a chest.

Where it came from or what it contains the world knows nothing, and Mr Lloyd George is far too wise a man to let the world into his secret. The chest may contain no more than a few old newspapers and a copper or two, like the famous box of Mme. Humbert, or it may be stuffed fuller than it can decently hold with banknotes. But full or empty, it stands between the two factions of Liberalism, and until it be shared by all, it will arouse in the hearts of Lord Oxford and Asquith's devouter followers a bitter feeling of envy and hatred.

For while Mr Lloyd George is reputed to be rich beyond the dreams of avarice, Lord Oxford and Asquith's faction is honestly poor. It made a gallant attempt once to raise a fund of a million. The attempt failed miserably, and the failure seemed the more deplorable because there was Mr Lloyd George with his pockets full. It was not for him to share his mysterious gains. He did not even account for the vast sums which he was said to have accumulated. He said no word about the purpose for which the money was given, nor did he reveal the names or the motives of the generous donors. Perhaps some of them may be sought and found in the House of Lords. But he doled, or did not dole, the money out to the Party with the lofty munificence of an approving sovereign, or with the niggardliness

of a hostile critic, and the story of the transactions, given by Lord Gladstone, is not pretty to hear.

We know that the coulisses of politics are not very pleasant places. We know also that the exposition of noble principles is largely a matter of pounds and shillings. But when we read about the transactions of politicians in cold print, we cannot but be convinced that politics is a squalid business. In the election of 1923, so Lord Gladstone tells Sir Godfrey Collins, the leaders of the Liberal Party "worked together like brothers." They "had loyally pooled everything that they had." Mr Lloyd

George had come down handsomely with £100,000 from the black chest, and the leaders of the Party thought that they had a right to expect, "in view of reunion, a continuance of this generous help." Everything seemed to depend upon the munificence of Mr Lloyd George. He belonged to the Party, and had got what support he could out of it for himself. He had the money, it was said, and the goodwill. Why, then, should he not come to the aid of his friends, whose lack of money was as great as their zeal was abundant.

The story which follows is a sad tragedy of meanness. Let Lord Gladstone tell it in his own words: "In January "

thus he writes-" we placed the whole position before him. We meant to fix, and did fix without delay, all the candi

dates possible within the limits of financial prudence. We could not incur very serious liabilities without some definite assurance of power to meet them. In these circumstances, as we provided the whole organisation and a substantial contribution to the expected election, in January (1924) we asked Mr Lloyd George if he would guarantee out of his own very large resources a sum sufficient to increase candidatures without delay to the total number for electoral competition with the Conservative and Labour Parties. He declined." So the great man remained entrenched behind his millions, which came none knows whence. The great Liberal Party prostrated itself before him, begging that he would throw to them a few thousands, which he would never miss. "For six months," says Lord Gladstone, we pressed again and again the urgency of the situation by personal interviews and other forms of communication, but without result." We are almost sorry for the poor humiliated leaders of the Liberal Party. In vain they implored. The great man, the dispenser of majorities, was obdurate. At last Mr Asquith himself stooped to beg a pittance from Mr Lloyd George, who kept the Liberals obedient upon the end of a string, and then told them that they were not properly organised! And when Sir Alfred Mond approved their organisation, Mr Lloyd George, with exquisite nonchalance,

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"expressed the view that 300 candidates were sufficient for the election!"

So the battle for the funds went on, and at last, when it was too late to do good, Mr Lloyd George gave from his vast resources the humble sum of £50,000 to the service of his Party. The sum was too small and came too late. "The discouragement was general ”again it is Lord Gladstone who speaks. "Liberal associations which had vainly sought for candidates declined to fight. Candidates who a few months before had been eager to stand held aloof, and gave excuses. They saw, as we saw only too clearly, that Liberals with so few candidatures were not in a position to offer an alternative Government, and that the main issue of the coming election would be the choice between

Conservatives and

Labour. Under these depressing conditions we did all we could, and fixed some sixty additional candidates, making the sorry total of 343. Had we been able in January with pooled resources to go full steam ahead under the inspiring results of the 1923 election, history would have been different."

Would history have been different? We doubt it. Lord Gladstone is over - sanguine. The Liberal Party was moribund before Mr Lloyd George refused obstinately to put his hand into his mysterious chest, and Mr Asquith gave it the coup de grâce when he played the

flunkey to the Labour Party. But the moral of Lord Gladstone's story is far other than he represents it. The quarrel which separates one-half of the poor little Liberal Party from the other is amusing, if unimportant. There is, to be sure, a kind of squalor in the whole episode of Lord Gladstone's importunity and Mr Lloyd George's penuriousness. The mere fact of Mr Lloyd George possessing a chest of his own warns us of a public danger. Mr Lloyd George is at once powerful and irresponsible. Though he holds no office and is never likely to hold office, though he represents no party but merely a trivial faction, he has a chest. How he filled it we are not told; we can only assume that the money was subscribed by grateful recipients of public honours. If that be so, the Party chest is still a scandal, and the pursuit of politics cannot be restored to honesty and good repute until that chest, and other chests like it, be wholly abolished or their contents publicly audited. We should know not only how much money is at the disposal of the Parties, but whence the subscriptions have come. For money may be tainted at its source, and if our popular government be carried on by means of corruption, then it is doomed to failure and to ruin.

It doesn't matter much in what compromise the dispute of the Liberal leaders ends.

The quarrel will probably be patched up somehow or other, and will then break out again. The incompatibles will never mix. While Lord Oxford and Asquith remains an oldfashioned Liberal, Mr Lloyd George has never been a Liberal

at all. If he be anything, he is an opportunist, waiting for a favourable breeze. His land policy, which he fondly hoped was to reunite and revivify a broken Party, is the very antithesis of Liberalism. How, indeed, could Lord Oxford and Asquith accept a measure which is a piece of scarcely veiled Socialism? This measure, indeed, is enough of itself to cause dissension in a Party which has been pledged always to resist the interference of the Government, and until it be out of the way it will be difficult even for the zealous forty to think or to vote in common. The truth is, Liberalism is dead; it awaits only decent burial and the zeal of an antiquarian who shall write its obituary notice. It can hardly be a laudatory notice, because the sins of Liberalism are too dark for palliation. But it has got to be written, and then Liberalism, the thing and the name, will be pigeon-holed and forgotten.

In all the discourses about Liberalism which have been made by its reluctant professors, we have been told that, however small and quarrelsome is the poor remnant, that remnant must be encouraged, because the sacred principles