Last Saturday at the annual meeting in Manchester of the
Lancashire Division of the National Unionist Association, Lord Derby, who presided, proposed that the discussion should be private. He frankly pointed out that they were about to consider "differences in the party," and he thought it undesirable that it should be possible for opponents to take "any one sentence out of a speech and construe it in a way that might disturb the rest." At the end of the private discus- sion it was announced that it had been unanimously agreed that any apparent difference as to Unionist policy was "merely one as to method rather than as to principle." The meeting was adjourned till January 11th, when it is hoped that Lanca- shire Unionist members of Parliament and candidates will be present. The opinion of Lancashire in this matter is so highly important that the meeting on January 11th will no doubt have a. very considerable influence on the course of the present dispute within the party. Although the meeting at Manchester was private it was generally known that the subject of discus- sion was the possibility of renewing the Referendum pledge. It is not for us as Free Traders to attempt to exact promises from a party committed to Tariff Reform. We have said over and over again that the need to prevent Home Rule, the spoliation of the Anglican Church in Wales, and the intro- duction of a devastating system of land taxation is so urgent that we are determined to support the Unionist Party in whatever sense it may be committed to Tariff Reform. Statesmanship means nothing for us if it does not mean saving the country from the most pressing perils that threaten it rather
than concentrating attention on acme remote and problem- atical ideal.
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