It is impossible for the public, while reading Mr. Churchill's
disavowals and his quotation of the disavowal of the Chief Whip, not to remember the disavowals of last October and what came of them, and how it was accident and nothing else, i.e., the accident of a certain stockbroker going bankrupt, which disclosed Lord Murray's deal in American Marconia on behalf of the Liberal Party. If last October some rumour had got abroad in regard to these matters, the Chief Whip, Mr. Illingworth, could have stated with perfect honesty, and without any thought of evasion, that not a penny of the party funds bad ever been invested in American Marconis. Yet all the time they had been so invested. These considera- tions make men say that all the new disclaimer means is that if there have been any transactions in oil shares the new Chief Whip was never told of them. For ourselves we fully admit that in all human probability this is a ease of over-suspiciousness. Since, however, there are no records as to bow party funds are obtained or spent, since Lord Murray has not offered him- self for cross-examination, and since no effort was made to search the bankrupt's books in regard to these rumours, it is still always open to people to declare that there was room for prevarication in the Ministerial disclaimers.
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