Sir George Trevelyan, speaking at a meeting of Liberals at
Bethnal Green on Tuesday, made it a great crime on the part of the Liberal Unionists that they voted in the House of Commons rather with a view to strengthen the Govern- ment than with a view to the particular merits of par- ticular votes. Does any serious politician really regard this policy as unscrupulous, or, indeed, as anything but right? What would Sir George Trevelyan do, .if Mr. Gladstone returned to power without asking him to take a share in the Government ? Would he not think it his duty to support Mr. Gladstone, even on questions in which he did not fully agree with him, if the tendency of any hostile vote would be materially to weaken Mr. Gladstone's Govern- meat, and to threaten the country with a return of the Conservatives to power ? We maintain that he would not only vote for Mr. Gladstone in such cases, but that he would be perfectly right in so doing, and that nothing would be less creditable to him than to endanger a Government in which he had confidence, by defeating it on any matter that was not of the first importance.
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