Replying to a member of the Junior Constitutional Club who
had asked whether it would be an act of disloyalty to the Conservative leaders to join the Unionist Free-Trade Club, the Hon. W. F. D. Smith, M.P., chairman of the London Conservatives in Parliament, has written to say that "if a London Unionist M.P. were to join that Club I should not consider him to have in any way severed himself from the Unionist party, nor to have made it impossible for him to support the Government on general political grounds." The Nottingham Liberal Unionist Association, as we noted in our last issue, took a very different view in regard to the seceders, but such divergences of opinion are only natural when the Cabinet itself speaks with two voices, while Mr. Balfour remains silent. Here we may note that Mr. Deeley, who had announced his intention to stand as a Tariff Reform candidate in the Ealing division, where a Unionist and a Radical candidate are already in the field, recently wrote to Mr. Chamberlain asking whether he should persist in his candidature, and whether there was any chance of Mr. Balfour and Mr. Chamberlain joining forces. Mr. Chamberlain's reply to this ingenuous question was published on Thursday, and runs as follows :—" I do not myself recognise any difference of principle between Mr. Balfour and myself. If we differ at all, it is only on a question of methods and tactics. But Mr. Balfour has advooated•the great object which I have in view as strongly as any Tariff Reformer could desire." In spite of this reassuring message, it is stated that Mr. Deeley has not yet decided whether to persevere with his candidature or not.
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