LIBERAL EXTREMISM
SIR,—Mr. Alfred Sherman's argument that the danger implicit in a growth of Liberal strength through capture of the floating vote is that this would set the extremists of the other two parties free from the restraint of their own liberal-minded members and any need to placate the liberal vote in the country is ingenious but invalid. It is invalid because it is based on the assumption that the anchoring of the liberal-minded floating voters to the Liberal Party cause could not give the Liberal Party sufficient representation in Parliament to affect the balance of political power.
This has still to be proved and it is more likely that, if the Conservatives and Socialists were to throw off the deference to liberal attitudes among their own members and in the country, which at present deters them from extreme policies: the Liberal Party's strength in Parliament would so in- crease that neither of the other parties could govern without their approval.
, There is a better guarantee of a Conservative or Socialist government pursuing tolerably liberal policies' if the penalty of not doing so would be the certainty of an adverse vote from a solid body of Liberal MPs than there is in the hope that Conservative and Socialist leaders will continue to pursue moderate courses because of their own liberal natures coupled with a desire to carry the liberal vote in the country.
In short, all who want liberal policies should vote Liberal and not bank on Butskellism as a permanent political condition.
NOEL NEW'SOMLI
Marton !loose, Marion. Warwickshire
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