NEWS • OF THE WEEK.
FROM.last Saturday till Wednesday the -newspapers were full of " scare headlines " describing the crisis in the Unionist Party, and editors vied with each other in producing "inspired" articles on the positions respectively occupied by Mr. Chambeilain and Mr. Balfour. The two chiefs had met at dinner at Mr. Chamberlain's house on Friday week in order to arrange a Plan. of joint action, but, according to the reports, it was found impossible to arrive at any agreement. Neither would budge an inch. Mr. Chamberlain insisted that the Tariff Reform policy :must be adopted en bloc by Mr. Balfour, and threatened that if it were not.he would break up the Unionist Party, and, start a Tariff Reform Tarty of his own, with separate Whips in Parliament, and a separate organisation in the country which at by-elections would run special candidates. Mr. Balfour, on the other hand, was represented as declaring that Tariff 'Reform must be dropped, for the present at any rate,. and that the party must con- centrate its energies on non-fiscal subjects. Besides these questions of policy, the question of the leadership was also hotly debated in the Press. Mr. Balfour was in many quarters declared to be both. unwilling and unable to lead a party united on Tariff Reform. On the other hand, Mr. Chamber- lain was alleged to have decided irrevocably that he would not and could not lead. In the event, then, of Mr. Balfour refusing to lead on Mr. Chamberlain's-terms, it was proposed that Mr. Walter Long should become leader of the party,—a fantastic suggestion which we must attribute to hazy recollec- tions of Roman history. When Augustus and Mark Antony determined to form a triumvirate, Lepidus—who may be com- pared to a country gentleman politician—Was imported into the combination as third man. Finally, a heated discussion raged over the question whether there should or should not be a meeting of the party.
