Mr. Chamberlain presided at the first annual meeting of the
Grand Committee of the Birmingham Liberal Unionist Asso- ciation on Monday, and made a striking speech. We have said enough in another column of his account of the way in which he has popularised Liberal Unionism in Birmingham by the huge ward Committees he has created, and need only add that he believes that the Liberal Unionists, when this organisation is completed, would be able "to hold the fort alone" in Birming- ham, though he has no intention, of course, of repudiating the assistance of the Conservatives, which, indeed, he has more than once earnestly invited, and to whom he has admitted that certain concessions should be made as regards seats, if on a fair census of the constituencies it should appear that they are cheated of their due Parliamentary influence in Birming- ham. Mr. Chamberlain asserted that the Government is stronger now in Parliament than it was three years ago, and that this is what no other Parliamentary Party can say. The Opposition have at the present moment " a divided leadership and distracted counsels. They have as many programmes as there are individuals amongst them. They are like a wrecked crew on a raft in mid-ocean, and every man of them is trying to rig a jury-mast and to fix to it his own ragged pockethandkerchief, in the hope of catching, if it may be, a gust of popular favour." The Storeys and the Laboucheres,— the Jacobins of the Liberal Party,—had no doubt gained greatly by the confusion ; but the Girondists of the party, the Morleys and the Whitbreads, must, Mr. Chamberlain thought, be filled with dismay at the prospect.
Previous page
