Sir Wilfrid Lawson said a witty thing at the annual
meeting of the United Kingdom Alliance in Manchester on Tuesday, when he asserted that "the real religion of Englishmen is the worship of vested interests." But like most witticisms, it is only half true, for though they worship vested interests which they cam buy out, they take leave to plough up pretty quickly vested interests which decline to be bought out. Sir Wilfrid appealed to the Times as evidence that the reason Parliament will not vote the Permissive Bill is simply that it believes the publicans to be better electioneerers than the Alliance men. The statesmen who are called " leaders " are, according to Sir Wilfrid, no more leaders than the leaders in a stage-coach which go just where they are driven, and the statesmen, therefore, will follow the constituencies. Sir Wilfrid Lawson declared that his worst enemy had never called him a statesman. He was not a' leader.' On the contrary, he was one of the drivers, who would soon have the satisfaction of driving the " leaders " his own way. And to illus- trate his meaning, Sir Wilfrid gave Mr. Disraeli, the " near " leader, a taste of the thong by way of comment on the obsequious manner in which the Ministry submitted to Mr. Plimsoll so soon as public opinion declared in his favour. But why should prompt deference to a majority be a sin, at least in the view of a politician who wishes to make the accidental opinion of two-thirds of the rate- payers of a parish the test of social morality on all alcoholic questions in that parish ?
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