On Wednesday a meeting of the Liberal Union Club was
held at the Hotel Metropole to consider the question of sending delegates to the new Liberal Unionist organisation founded by Mr. Chamberlain,—a body founded, in fact if not in name, with the object of getting rid of the Duke of Devonshire and the Free-traders, and creating a body which, while called Liberal Unionist, shall be available for Tariff Reform pur- poses. Very properly, the Liberal Unionist Free-traders, led by Mr. Arthur Elliot, refused to agree to sending delegates to such a body, and after a division (in which they numbered 64 as against 108 (ihamberlainites), resolved to resign member- ship of the Club, and to found a new Club to be called the Unionist Free-Trade Club, which should be open both to Conservative and to Liberal Unionist Free-traders. An Organising Committee has already been formed, and all Conservative and Liberal Unionist Free-traders who desire to join the Club should communicate at once with the honorary secretary, Sir Cameron Gull, Bart., 10 Hyde Park Gardens, W. We have dwelt elsewhere upon the supreme importance of Unionist Free-traders joining the new organisation instead of merely remaining apart or becoming merged in the Liberal party. The stronger a Unionist Free-trader's feeling for the Unionist party, and all it has hitherto meant in national and Imperial affairs, the stronger the support he should give to an organisation which is formed with a view of maintaining both Free-trade and the Union, and of keeping together the Free-trade section of the Unionist party ready to engage in the work of reuniting the party after Mr. Chamberlain has led it to the ruin that awaits it at the next Election. It should be made clear that though the new body has originated amohg the Liberal Unionists, it is by no means intended to confine it to them. It is, indeed, of the utmost importance that it should include Conservative Free-traders, 'who in the country form the bulk of the Unionist Free-traders.
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