[* In a letter to Wilfrid Ward.]
(undated)
I have, as you will have seen, pulled it off by 852. It is huge fun. I am now out against all Vermin: Notably South African Jews. The Devil is let loose: let all men beware. H. B.
(Written across top of letter)
Tomorrow Monday Meet the Manchester train arriving Euston 6.10 and oblige your little friend HB St. Hilary's Day.
Don't fail to meet that train. Stamps are cheap! HB
I beg you. I implore you. Meet that 6.10 train.
HB
Stamps are a drug in the market.
852
Meet that train!
Stamps are given away now in Salford.
From 1902, when the general election left the Conservatives still in power, until 1906 the Liberal party had been, as Chesterton described it, "in the desert." And the younger members of the party were deeply concerned with hammering out a positive philosophy which might inspire a true programme for their own party. A group of them wrote a book called England A Nation with the sub-title Papers of A Patriot's Club. The Patriot's Club had no real existence, but I imagine that Lucian Oldershaw who edited the book believed that its publication might create the club. Belloc was not one of the contributors, but Hugh Law wrote ably on Ireland, J. L. Hammond on South Africa, and Conrad Noel, Henry Nevinson and C. F. G. Masterman on other aspects of the political scene.