The chairman, Mr. Arthur Elliot, who gave the toast of
the Houses of Parliament, observed, in regard to Lord Hugh Cecil's astonishing statement as to Mr. Balfour, that if "Lord Hugh would nominate him as a member of the club, nothing would give him greater pleasure than to second the nomina- tion." After a speech from a member of the club who pointed out the irreparable damage which must be done to the Free- trade cause if the Liberal Party insisted on establishing old- age pensions, owing to the impossibility of raising the funds required for such pensions without recourse to a general tariff, Lord Balfour of Burleigh defended the House of Lords from the attack of the Prime Minister. His speech concluded with a most able and luminous analysis of the Blue-book contain- ing the Report of the Imperial Conference. Lord Balfour showed once again that though he remains the staunchest and most loyal of Conservatives, there is no man who has a firmer hold on Free-trade principles, or who is more determined to maintain those principles, be the hostility he may thereby awaken never so bitter.
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