Mr Chamberlain's speech at St. James's Hall was a very
wise and moderate one. He was received with the utmost enthusiasm, the whole audience rising to testify to their com- plete confidence in his disinterested and courageous statesman- ship. He bore the most earnest testimony to the friendliness and loyalty of the Conservative leaders, and expressed his emphatic belief that the affiance between the Liberal Unionists, and the Conservatives was destined to last and to bear still richer fruits. He evidently leaned to the view that it should continue to be an alliance rather than a fusion, but not, as we understand him, in any sense that would bar a Coalition Government, if the General Election gives a triumph to the Unionist party. All Mr. Chamberlain desires is to keep the Conservative and the Liberal Unionist elements so far distinct that there would be no check in the constituencies to the stream of so-called Liberals who are pouring from the Gladstonian into the Liberal Unionist ranks. That is a very wise reserve. And even for the purpose of the next Govern- ment it is by no means undesirable that the distinct elements to be embodied in that Government should be kept well in view. Both constituents of it need reminding that they have to co-operate at some slight cost of personal sacrifice with colleagues of a somewhat different type.
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