Evening Post. MONDAY, JANUARY 21, 1924. SOFTENING THE BLOW

Evening Post, Volume CVIII, Issue 17, 21 January 1924, Page 6

Evening Post. MONDAY, JANUARY 21, 1924. SOFTENING THE BLOW

Mr. Clynes appears to have made a rather tame speech in support of his no-confidence amendment to the Address-in-Reply, leaving it to Mr. Asquith, who followed him," to rouse the Opposition to enthusiasm. But this does not necessarily mean that Mr. Asquith's was the better speech. The applause which a speech excites is often a very poor test of'its quality, and sometimes supplies no adequate measure even of its ultimate effect upon those who heard it. "A Government guilty of vacillation and impotence at home and abroad " provided an easy mark for Mr. Asquith's invective, but his eloquence on this point was for the most part irrelevant. He was perfectly well aware of this, and so were his followers, but irrelevancies are pleasant in proportion to the unpleasantness of the essence and crux of the matter in hand. Both Mr. Asquith's vigour of denunciation and the cheers with which it was greeted by his party may doubtless be attributed in part to their desire to encourage one another in the dubious enterprise to which they are committed. Nobody has suggested that the Conservatives should be allowed to remain in office as though their majority had not disappeared.' The question was whether the Liberals, holding the balance1 of power, should help the Conservatives to a stronger and more popular policy, or should put Labour in power with the brake on. In choosing the second alternative, they have undertaken a grave responsibility which can only be-jus-tified by proving how the brake can be applied in that field of policy where Parliament is best able to exercise a continuous control, and where a single blunder may entail irreparable mischief. Is it unfair to say that Mr. Asquith showed a due appreciation of this difficulty by ignoring foreign, policy altogether ?

Rhetorically, the speech of Mr. Clynes may have lagged far behind Mr. Asquith's, but in substance it was a long way ahead. It is surely a very happy omen that the firstthing to attract a cheer in the speech which heralds the coming into power of what is, to say the least, the least Imperially-minded of the three parties, should have been a reference to the Dominions. It is a matter for more solid satisfaction that the note of sympathy was well maintained throughout Mr. Clynes's discussion of a question on \rhich the views of the Dominions and of British Labour are in sharp conflict.' We have always maintained that Britain has exactly the same right to treat her own tariff in her own way that the Dominions exercise in regard to theirs, and we cannot see that they have any right to complain if the small measure of fiscal preference which the defeated Government was prepared to grant is refused by the new Parliament in conformity with the decisive declaration of the electors in favour of Free Trade. But for those who think differently, the sympathetic tone of Mr. Clynes and the readiness to which he testifies on the part of his party to consider what help can be given to the Dominion producer without tampering with the tariff should soften the blow that appears to be inevitable. The Labour Party, if Mr. Clynes does not misrepresent, it, agrees with Mr. Lloyd George that there is ample reason for preference outside the tariff, and it will be a blessing for all concerned if, instead of growling over their disappointment, the Dominions can enlist the practical sympathy of British Labour along these lines.