IV

POLITICS

343

section has an equal claim to call itself Liberal .Nevertheless, I think that it would be for thehealth of the party if all those who believe, withMr. Winston Churchill and Sir Alfred Mond ,that the coming political struggle is best de-scribed as Capitalism versus Socialism, and,thinking in these terms, mean to die in the lastditch for Capitalism, were to leave us. Thebrains and character of the Conservative Party have always been recruited from Liberals, andwe must not grudge them the excellent materialwith which, in accordance with our historicmission, we are now preserving them from in-tellectual starvation. It is much better that theConservative Party should be run by honest andintelligent ex-Liberals, who have grown too oldand tough for us, than by Die-Hards. Possiblythe Liberal Party cannot serve the State inany better way than by supplying Conserva-tive Governments with Cabinets, and LabourGovernments with ideas.

At any rate, I sympathise with Labour in re-jecting the idea of co-operation with a partywhich included, until the other day, Mr.Churchill and Sir Alfred Mond, and still con-tains several of the same kidney. But this diffi-culty is rapidly solving itself. When it is solved,the relations between Liberalism and Labour,at Westminster and in the constituencies, will,without any compacts, bargains, or formalities,become much more nearly what some of uswould like them to be.

It is right and proper that the Conservative