Mr. Asquith issued his election address on Wednesday. There must,
he said, be " no tampering with the essentials of Free Trade." Irish Home Rule must be " promptly translated into a working reality." The temporary restraints on personal liberty and the free expression of opinion must be removed. The sailors and soldiers and their dependants had the first claim on our attention. The watchword of Reconstruction must be " the formula of a national minimum "—of a standard of existence which should make life worth living for every one. Mr. Asquith declared he was not bound to any cut-and-dried programme, but would support any policy from any quarter that proceeded on those lines. To be successful, a policy of creative reform should be " subject to full scrutiny in the free atmosphere of a representative House of Commons," and every elector should claim and exercise unfettered liberty of choice. The bearing of these very cautious remarks, as Captain Cuttle would say, "lays in the application on them."
