The wire-pullers of the two sections of the Opposition have
bad a struggle this week which has ended for the present in a drawn battle. For ten years past the Liberal Central Office," that is, the Whips' Office, and the National Liberal Federation, or representative Council of local committees, have used the same secretary and staff, and "cohabited" in the same building, and have not, therefore, been independent of each other. The arrangement suits the leaders, but the Radicals dislike it, and their Committee, therefore, raised the standard of revolt. The National Federation, they said, should have a separate building to work in and a separate staff. When ap- proached on the subject, Sir William Harcourt at first seemed friendly, but on second thoughts declined to give an opinion, and at a meeting of Radical Members it was found that there was a great division of sentiment. De- cision, therefore, was postponed until after the Hud- dersfield conference of the party, when the subject will be threshed out. The quarrel, which is rather bitter, the Daily News and the Daily Chronicle taking advantage of it to bludgeon each other, is described as "the Radical split," but it is not exactly a split. It rather resembles a fight among boxers round a prize-ring as to the choice of an umpire. It is the leadership, of course, which the party is quarrelling about, perhaps a little prematurely. When they get one he will, let us hope, be a man disposed, as his first duty, to hang mutineers.
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