The Duke ends by expressing the hope that the Conservative
Party will make it clear to the Government that under no circumstances will they abandon the Southern loyalists to their fate. " These unfortunate people," he says, " are, for obvious reasons, muzzled so far as Parliament and the Press are concerned, and suffer from the additional disadvantage of being misrepresented in both by a small minority of their number." The Duke has, with that straightforwardness to which he has accustomed us, put his finger upon the real difficulty. What he calls the Conservative Party, but what we should prefer to call the Constitutional Democratic Party, have got the power, if they will only use it, to control Mr. Lloyd George and make him play the part of a self-respecting but also loyal party leader, instead of a political free-lance. We used to blame Mr. Lloyd George for a condition so unsatisfactory as that which now exists, but we are bound to say that we feel inclined to revise our judgment and to lay it upon the Unionists who have not the courage to recognize the facts and to act upon them.
Previous page
