THE FOUNDATION OF LIBERALISM [To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR]
SIR,—Professor Ernest Barker seeks a new foundation for Liberalism. A good many people will answer that Liberalism has done very well without any foundation, or with none better than the anarchic theory which led even so great a man as Mill into contradiction. Certainly the oddest spec- tacle in history was the organisation of the democratic State by Liberal parties stoutly maintaining that all legislation was an infringement of liberty ; and bureaucratic organisation its chief enemy. During last century, all Liberals could say : " Yet Freedom! yet thy banner torn, but flying Streams like the thunderstorm against the wind " —that is, the hot air of Spencerian radicals.
The truth is, perhaps, that the Party did well so long as its practical men ignored impractical theorists ; and it does less well now when it needs some logical principle of action. Parties in power must unite upon issues of actual govern- ment ; out of power they may be better for a coherent theory, at least for propaganda.—Yours faithfully,
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