DEMOCRATS TAKE NOTICE

It is easy enough to explain the Conservative majority in the English Parliament in terms of Russian treaties, economic policies, and uncontested seats, but the decay of liberalism is something which cannot be explained away. In the previous general election, in the ensuing by-elections, and in the election of this week, the Liberal party has suffered an almost continuous succession of defeats. It now controls seven per cent of the seats in Parliament.

The defeat of Liberalism is that it is a compromise between two divergent policies. However much people may accept a compromise as a solution to two equally possible courses of action, they do not respect the party which makes it, and makes it not as a necessity but as a continuous party policy. Although the average voter realizes that final compromise is inevitable, he likes to see his party stand four-square on every issue. Liberalism, from the very start of the political race, rides two mounts; and such a jockey is fortunate if he does not end in the dust.

The English are by no means an uncompromising race, for their avowed policy and boast is to "muddle through somehow"; yet they have just turned their thumbs down on the party which walks in the middle of the road. They see that since Liberals have become more and more indistinguishable from Conservatives, the new amalgamation is no paradox, but only another form of elimination.