On Tuesday the Conference was addressed by the Prime Minister,
who quickly showed himself to be master of his audience. It is true that his victory over the dissidents of the Independent Labour Partywas not complete, but the fact remains that the I.L.P. had hoped to gain ground and gained none. As he dealt in little but generalities, his personal achievement was the greater. Like Miss Lawrence, he claimed very positive merits for the Govern- ment and declared that he had "no apologies whatever" to make. Some curious passages in the speech were aimed at Mr. Lloyd George. Mr. MacDonald said that when he was negotiating he did not "run to the news- papers at the end of every meeting" and tell them that he had given the other person" a tremendous thrashing." Again, "You don't get up one morning, either at Churt or at Downing Street, and half between sleeping and waking wave a wand and somebody on a flying carpet comes with a scheme to build a road between Liverpool and Manchester." The Liberals profess to be puzzled by such references. We cannot imagine why. Mr. Lloyd
George's abuse of Mr. MacDonald which we mentioned last week is a plain enough explanation.
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