4 OCTOBER 1913, Page 19

We are delighted, of course, to see that the Economist

worm has turned, but we are perfectly certain that its plea to the Cobden Club and the Free Trade Union will fall upon deaf ears. No one in the Liberal Party will pay the slightest attention to its lamentations. The fact is, the Liberal Party, though it may still usurp the name of "Free Trade," has entirely abandoned the substance. No true Free Trader need feel that he owes any allegiance to the Liberal Party. At any moment the Irish and the Labour men who control it, and who are for the most part protectionists, may order the Liberal Party to abandon those principles on a great as well as on a petty scale. That they will obey we cannot doubt.