We should have thought that a movement intended to protect
the interests of the taxpayer against wasteful expenditure was just the thing to save the Coalition, and that to treat it as a Conservative cabal meant abso- lute ruin to the Coalition. After all, it is impossible to ignore the fact that the Liberal element of the Coalition is by far the weaker element, though, curiously enough, almost all the prominent and ruling members of the Government, except Lord Curzon and Mr. Austen Chamberlain, are Liberals, and not Unionists ; and, again, most of the great appointments in the State are in the hands of the Liberals. Liberal Coalition- ists—Mr. Montagu and Lord Reading—rule our Eastern• Empire absolutely, while Sir Herbert Samuel governs in Palestine. Mr. Winston Churchill is lord of the rest of the Empire, while a Liberal, Mr. Lloyd George, is " in all causes ecclesiastical as well as civil within these his Dominions supreme." No doubt these appointments will be defined by many supporters of the Government as merely " best men appointments " ; but, considering the situation, it is certainly a little dangerous for Mr. Lloyd George's chief henchman to bluster and talk big about Conservative movements, and to hint at plots to drive Liberals like himself from office 1
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