Mr. Asquith addressed a large Liberal meeting at Cam- bridge
on Monday night. Alluding to the hopefulness and confidence of the Liberal party, he attributed the confusion and demoralisation of their opponents to the conjoint activity of Mr. Balfour and Mr. Chamberlain. Lord Selborne had said that the spirit of Lord Liverpool was reincarnated in him (Mr. Asquith). But seeing that Lord Liverpool was the head of a Cabinet fundamentally divided on the great issue of the moment—Catholic Emancipation—but kept together by hook or by crook for an unprecedented length of time in apparent unity and the actual possession of the sweets of power, Lord Selborne might look rather nearer home to see a reincarnation of Lord Liverpool. Mr. Asquith strongly repudiated the imputation that the Liberals were content with the policy of folded hands. The real burden on the industry of Great Britain was not unfair competition, but the extravagant expenditure and borrowing of the State, and he hoped that if a Liberal Government came into power the first duty they set before themselves would be a reduction in that expenditure. The charge that Liberals sought to burke dis- cussion was absurd. They wished for nothing better than the return of Mr. Chamberlain that they might have a little more to discuss. So, too, was the charge that they were afraid to meet and discuss matters with their fellow-subjects the Colonists. But there must be a basis for the Conference. If the Imperial Government's offer to the Colonies was a preference on food by taxing food from foreign countries, that meant a rise in the price of food for every household in the country, with the inevitable corollary of a preference on raw materials. As for the Colonies, the only preference they were solidly in favour of was one which was consistent with the complete and undisturbed protection of their own native industries.
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