NOTES 441 



candidates. Now of uncontested seats 42 were Conservative, 

 7 National Liberal, 5 Liberal, and 4 Labour. If we take 60 

 per cent, as the minimum in each case, that adds a million to 

 the Conservative vote ; 100,000 to Labour ; 120,000 to Liberal ; 

 and 168,000 to the National Liberal. 

 The revised figures then read : 



Conservative 

 Labour 



Liberal 



National Liberal 

 Independent 



6,361,650 

 4,325,823 

 2,690,316 

 1,716,286 

 343,890 



The Conservatives therefore polled one out of ever}'- three 

 votes cast. And the interesting fact emerges that if it had 

 not been for the split in the Liberal ranks, the Liberal poll 

 would have been greater than that of Labour — 4,406,602 

 against 4,325,823 — while it is well known that many Liberals 

 voted Conservative or Labour, either because there was no 

 Liberal candidate, or no chance of getting him in. (On the 

 whole the Radical section voted Labour, and the Whig section 

 Conservative, so far as can be ascertained.) 



C. — It is an interesting and relevant fact that none of the 

 Liberal candidates who stood for the new Manchester pro- 

 gramme (Liberalism with a dash of Labour) were returned. 

 That is a sufficient answer to the reiterated suggestion of a 

 Liberal-Labour union against the Conservatives. The plain 

 fact is that Liberal and Labour will only unite to get the 

 Conservative out, and even then not with enthusiasm ; they 

 will not agree on anything else. Nor can they be expected to 

 do so : the fundamental Liberal creed is individualism with 

 the minimum of State intervention, the Labour creed is the 

 precise opposite. Moreover Labour, being in the ascendant at 

 the moment, can hardly be expected to throw away any 

 chances. 



D. — The real weakness of Liberalism is not in its policy, 

 but in the personal vendetta which reduces it to impotence. 

 People are reasonably reluctant to vote for a party engaged in 

 civil war and otherwise impotent. If Liberalism does not 

 heal the breach, it will continue to lose to both Conservative 

 and Labour, and politics will take on a class-division, which 

 would be disastrous to the national interests, and which, more- 

 over, does not really represent the mind of the country. If, 

 on the other hand. Liberalism buries the Asquith-Lloyd George 

 hatchet, it will attract many who dislike both Conservatism 

 and Labour ; and before the next election is held, it will justify 

 the claim— which at present it could not dream of putting 

 forward — of being the alternative Government, 

 29 



