Last week we recorded the bare result of the Carlton
Club meeting at which Mr. Chamberlain's proposal to continue the Coalition was decisively beaten. We had then had no opportunity of reading Mr. Bonar Law's speech. Now that we have read it it is easy to under- stand why it decided the issue. The speech was a remark- able piece of reasoning, perhaps the best in Mr. Bonar Law's career, though he is by nature a good reasoner. It was well balanced yet positive, fair in detail yet lucid. The heart of the matter was that Mr. Boner Law attached much more importance to keeping the Unionist Party united than to winning the next election. He asserted that the feeling against the Coalition within the Unionist Party was so strong that the continuance of the Coalition meant the breaking up of the Party. He applied to the situation the analogy which we ourselves had used—the displacement of Mr. Asquith by Mr. Lloyd George during the War. He pointed out that at that time he had nothing but feelings of friendship for Mr. Asquith, but he felt that the change was necessary since Mr. Asquith had lost the confidence of the Unionist Party. Although he was a friend of Mr. Lloyd George's now, he felt precisely the same thing about Mr. Lloyd George in the changed circumstances.
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