A LIBERAL'S POINT OF VIEW
Sia,—As a Liberal I agree with Mr. Clive Bell on the need to replace the present Government, but I cannot agree with all he says. We might jump out of the frying-pan into the fire. It is true that the Socialists have squandered the capital of the country and in the process reduced the 4:icentives and output of nearly everyone while raising the standard of living for some. It is also true that after the 1914 war we rapidly reinvested abroad all that we had realised to pay for it, but by 1938 we were again actually selling investments to pay for current expenses while unemployment seared the souls of men and nearly a quarter of a million workers had left the land. This Government by its gullibility (among other things) has brought us again to the brink of war, but the Tories by their obtuseness (again among other things) brought us right into the last one. Labour with its huge majority has at least carried out its election pledges, even though it is ruining the country by doing so. :The Conservatives broke their promises, used their huge majority to prevent many things being done and so helped to ruin the country too.
We are now faced with a situation in which the return of the Labour Party will mean a continuation of the rake's progress, and complete bankruptcy as soon as American fear of Communism no longer makes it subsidise Socialist Governments, while embittered memories would probably mean that the return of the Tories would be a signal for wide- spread strikes and even the civil war of which Mr. Bell writes. The fear of these things would almost certainly ensure Conservative inaction as complete as that before the war. Personally I can see only one hope in this sombre outlook, and that is a real revival of the Liberal Party. Imbued, as it is, with a passion for social justice exceeding that of the Labour Party, but seeing clearly that Socialism will, in the long or short run, defeat its own aims, the Liberal Party surely has a unique part to play if only people will suppert it. It contains men like Sir Archibald Sinclair, whose steady unobtrusive work as Air Minister did so much to win the war, Mr. Dittgle Foot, tried in office and massive in knowledge, not to mention Lord Samuel, perhaps the weightiest statesman of the day. Our President, Mr. Philip Fothergill, and Chairman, Mr. Elliott Dodds, may be less well known, but both are outstanding for clarity of vision, balanced judgement and unswerving integrity. The return to Parliament of these men and others like them might well enable the nation to steer safely between the Scylla of Tory inaction through fear and the Charybdis of Labour overaction through folly, and the more of them there are the better the hope for the future.—Yours faithfully,
Dingle House, Wins ford, Cheshire. W. N. LEAK.
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