16 AUGUST 1957, Page 14

THE LIBERAL CREED SIR,—Certainly some things age ordered ill under

the present dispensation—and some things arc ordered well. They cannot be ordered as ill as all that from the Liberal point of view so long as, in Hudders- field, Bolton, Montgomery, Carmarthen and Cardigan Liberals are willing to appeal to Conservative voters to help return them to Parliament. It is of no moment whether, as I think, one Liberal could be returned to Westminster in three-cornered contest or whether, as Mr. Watson thinks, it would be two or three. The number would certainly not be sufficient to have any effective voting power and therefore the only chance of getting, Liberal things done is to persuade mem- bers of other parties to support them. There can be no point of arguing about what everybody knows to be true. It is easy enough, of course, to write down a list of desirable measures which it is alleged that the Liberals would carry out if they had a Parliamen- tary majority. Whether they wduld in fact carry them out is a question so hypothetical as hardly to, have any meaning. It is as if I' were to ask Mr. Watson whether, if he were a horse, he would run in the Derby, and, if so, whether he would win. All that we know about Liberal programmes and 'Liberal unity is that the Liberals did nothing about electoral reform or the wider distribution of property when they had the power and that at Carmarthen the Liberal candidate—to take only the most .recent of many instances—fought in direct opposition to the party's policy over Suez. Since Mr. Watson is fond of challenging questions, is he prepared to tell the Conservative electors of Huddersfield and Bolton that there is absolutely nothing in common between them and their Liberal members?—Yours faithfully,