The annual meeting of the General Committee of the National
Liberal Federation was held on Wednesday in the Memorial Hall, Manchester, with Dr. Spence Watson in the chair. Two resolutions on the war were submitted by the Executive Committee, of which the first, while reserving to the party the frill right of criticism, approved of the vigorous prosecution of the war ; while the second expressed admira- tion for the gallantry of the troops, British and Colonial, and sympathy with the wounded and bereaved. An amendment adding after the word "war" the sentence "which they believe that a wise statesmanship could and would have avoided," was carried by 114 votes to 94; but this, in a meeting of advanced Liberals, represented the utmost limits to which criticism was carried for the moment. The resolu- tions were supported in an admirably patriotio speech by Mr. Birrell. He denied that doubts as to whether the war was inevitable or not unnerved his arm or paralysed his will. We had no other course now except to press forward to victory. We were fighting for supremacy in South Africa, and if we sued for peace now we might put up the shutters in Downing Street and write over them "The business of the country no longer transacted here." A small minority of those present evidently did not go as far as Mr. Birrell, but the consensus of the meeting was with him when he declared that the only issue at present was to press on "until the flag of our country was flying at Pretoria and Johannesburg."
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