Before we attempt any summary of the debate in the
House of Lords we desire to put on record the fact that the bulk of the Unionist peers who saved the situation were not Unionist Free Traders but Tariff Reformers. It was a mere accident that Lord Cromer, the leader of the Unionist Free Traders,. was specially active in the work of withstanding the Halsbury group. These Tariff Reform peers must have found it very painful to take a line so strongly opposed to Mr. Chamberlain. They showed themselves, however, entirely independent of such considerations. Incidentally, of course, they did far more service to the cause they have at heart—Tariff Reform— than they could have done by helping to force the creation. That cause must have shared the ruin of the whole Unionist Party had Mr. Austen Chamberlain and Mr. F. R Smith bee" successful.
