The "Annual Grand Habitation" of the Primrose League was held
at the Opera House, Covent Garden, on Tuesday afternoon, under the presidency of the Grand Master, Lord Salisbury. The house was filled long before the proceedings commenced with 3,500 persons, who represented, however, if the figures of the Primrose League may be trusted, just about one third of a unit in every hundred of its total number of mem- bers, for Lord Salisbury declares that there are now a million members, and treats the League as a great popular bulwark of democratic Conservatism. Lord Salisbury, however, treats democratic Conservatism as if it were Conservatism only as to the form of our institutions, and not as to the policy which that form should lead us to adopt. In relation to social progress, he was Liberal enough in his declarations on behalf of the Primrose League. "I am sure," he said, "that as far as the improvement of the condition of all the circumstances of life, and of all the opportunities of self-culture, and all the secu- rities against future want, which can be afforded either by the legitimate action of Parliament, or by the surer, wider, and more truthful action of public opinion, go, all such results are desired, and will be promoted with at least as much heartiness in every part of the Constitutional party, as they will be among the members of any other party in the State. It is the problem which we all have to solve, arid we shall give to it our most earnest attention." And he appealed to the appointment of the Labour and Capital Commission as an evidence of the sympathy of the Government with such a policy of social improvement.
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