Mr. Asquith addressed a Liberal meeting at Ladybank on Saturday
last, and dealt at length with " the relation, actual or supposed, between Liberalism and Socialism." The Tory papers, said Mr. Asquith, suggested that the only course open to the people of this country if they wished to avoid universal spoliation by Liberals and Socialiatswas to throw, them- selves bodily and blindly into the arms of Toryism and Tariff Reform. In such a controversy, however, it was well to be sure of their definitions. The spread of Socialism, so far as it meant that men's social vision was being enlarged and their social conscience aroused, was no matter for regret, but rather one of the healthiest signs of , our times. But when liberty in its positive, and not merely its negative, sense was threatened, then Liberalism and what was called Socialism in the true and strict meaning of the term parted company. "Liberty," continued Mr. Asquith, "meant more than the mere absence of coercion or restraint,—it meant the power of initiative, the free play of intelligence and wills, the right, so long as a man did not become a danger or a nuisance to the community, to use as he thought best the faculties of his nature or his brain, the opportunities of his life." The reconstruction of society on what were called Socialistic lines would starve liberty to death, and introduce the most startling despotism that the world has ever seen.
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