Conservatives, Independent Liberals, and Labour all alike attacked National Liberal seats where they thought any advantage might be gained for their respective parties by doing so. The Conservatives only refrained from attack in cases where they thought there was more to be gained by arrangement. There was a great volume of popular sentiment behind our group. I visited Britain, north, south, east, west, and I have never witnessed such crowds nor such enthusiasm at any electoral contest in which I have ever taken part; but there was no organisation to convert acclamation into electoral power, and you could not build up a vast political machine in three weeks. Our supporters were not provided with an opportunity to test their strength in two-thirds of the constituencies. In nearly three hundred constituencies they could not do so without impairing the chances of Liberal candidates. A compact with Conservatives ruled them out of others.
It is a wonder that, in spite of these adverse and even paralysing conditions our numbers are twice those of the Independent Liberals in 1918.
We have now for the first time full opportunity for placing our case and point of view before the country and organising support for them. It is our duty to do so.
Every month will contribute its justification for the course we have hitherto pursued, and for the counsel we have steadfastly given to a country struggling through abnormal difficulties.
London, November 20th, 1922.
XXIV HOW DEMOCRACY WORKS
The startling English by-elections of the last few weeks have called attention to the working of the new electorate in Great Britain and set men pondering about its possibilities in a way a general election failed to make them think. Democracy in the sense of government of a great state by the absolute and unfettered authority of the majority of its own citizens of all ranks and conditions is a modern experiment. The United States of America are the oldest democracy in the world to-day.
How many realise that Britain became a democracy for the first time in 1917? Until then the majority of its adult population had no voice in the making or administration of the laws that ruled their lives.