Oct. 28.
Ir is a topsy-tury world in which the Unionists are Seen erying for surcease from grandiose schemes, a time of quietness, abjuration of big responsibilities and, by inference, accusing the Liberals of jingoism Yet such is the burden of the speeches at the Hotel Cecil meeting, and it will be interesting to see in what new form Mr. Bonar Law, when he opens his general election campaign at Glasgow, will parade that old, seductive but ever fallacious phantasm of peace, retrenchment and reform. It has led him already into one rather laughable admission tariff reform, for many years one of the grand ideals of the Unionist party, is dropped overboard with as little splash as possible. Ore can only conclude that it has been found, after all, that protection does not pay. On the other hand, the forecast of free play to individual initiative should widely be welcomed. No sin.lies more heavily at the Liberals' door than their multiplication of bureaucrats. The business. men's government,"' on which Mr. Lloyd George prided himself, may or may not have been a success in the Cabinet, But when reproduced in the permanent departments there appears very little disagreement as to its failure. Certainly in respect of shipping, the railways, coal-mines and other great undertakings, Government control had deplorable results; and while the old-fashioned—civil servant had his drawbacks, there is an evident revulsion of feeling in his favour as against the "new importations. which. have swelled the permanent departments to
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.