that the value of the land has enormously increased. If the same principle were carried out in such an old English town as Ipswich we might see the whole aspect of our slum problem changed. In Ipswich there is a beautiful High Street that is far too narrow for modern traffic requirements. If it were widened, as is advocated in certain quarters, many picturesque houses would have to be pulled down, and part of the charm of Ipswich would be lost. But lying parallel to the High Street, hidden away from public gaze, is a quantity of poor property. Could not a by-pass road be cut right through this property, in the same manner as has been done in Chicago, and thus provide another way for the volume of motor traffic through East Anglia? The frontages on this road would be of far higher value for shops, garages, and such purposes than the present cottage property; and if the scheme could be carried through on sufficiently broad lines, it might in time be extremely profitable. There would, of course, be opposition from the shop owners in the present main street, but always vested interests are apt to raise difficulties.

In Croydon a similar plan for running a new road through the poor property in the neighbourhood of the main street, so as to cope with the increasing traffic, might well prove to be a good investment. I only quote these two examples in order to illustrate the argument that land now covered with small house property of comparatively little value, may give a far higher return if it is fully developed. Another example is furnished by the Larkhall estate at Wandsworth. This estate, covering 30 acres, is at present so much under-developed that it only accommodates 1,500 people. Under a scheme that has been carefully thought out by such a skilled town-planner as Sir Theodore Chambers, the chairman of the Welwyn Garden City, the Larkhall estate will in time accommodate 5,000 people, and this population will have on the site open gardens, tennis courts, and other outdoor recreational facilities. Those who wish to see what can be done in the development of an area of small Victorian houses by modern methods would be well advised to make a journey to Clapham North Station, and see for themselves the flats now being erected on the Larkhall estate, within fifteen minutes of Whitehall. The skilful planning of Mr. de Soissons and Mr. Gray Wornum, and far-sighted finance, provided partly by private enterprise acting through a Public Utility Society, and

partly by loans from the London County Council, have made this scheme possible.

It is not possible in the limits of this article to give more details of the way planning and proper development can help to meet our slum problems, but all who have studied the subject agree with Mr. Neville Chamberlain, the present Minister of Health, who has an extremely practical outlook on these intricate questions, when he advocates the extension of existing townplanning powers to arrange for "zoning" in built-up areas. Finally, we shall do well to remember that it is foolish to be too dogmatic or too doctrinaire in considering this many-sided problem. To ensure success, slums must be attacked from every possible direction and by means of every available power or influence."

B. S. TOWNROE

THE FUTURE OF THE LIBERAL PARTY

THE interpretation of election results is a form of speculative thought which attracts many people, though it rarely leads to conclusions conspicuous either for their truth or for their utility. Yet I think that it is possible, without undue rashness, to make certain tentative deductions of some small value from the results of the last three General Elections which have taken place in this country. It will be remembered that the one which followed the awakening from the long nightmare of the Coalition enabled a Conservative government to take office with a good working majority. The reader will also recollect that Mr. Bonar Law on that occasion promised the electorate a policy of “ tranquillity." That is to say, he undertook to allow the nation a breathing space in which to recover from the orgy of legislative excess which had marked the Lloyd George era, from its hectic beginning to its dishonoured end. For some months therefore the country enjoyed rest, and continued to give its confidence to Mr. Baldwin when the leadership of the Conservative party fell to him after the death of his predecessor. But, less than twelve months after the General Election, an alliance between the two sections of Conservatives known respectively as the "Honest Fools" and the "Forty Thieves," forced upon the party a fatal change of policy, and the deluded electorate saw that its hope of tranquillity was to be snatched away. For the Conservatives reverted to the debilitated Socialism of the Coalition, and declared their intention to make the people prosperous by Act of Parliament. At the ensuing General Election the worm turned to some effect. The nation, having given definite instructions to the Conservative party to clean up the nasty mess left behind by the Coalition, showed in no uncertain manner how deeply it resented the attempt of that party to shirk its task, and even to introduce a new source of political corruption. The Conservative majority disappeared, and our country passed through another period of humiliation, until a happy chance brought matters again before the judgment seat of the electorate. The Conservatives were forgiven, but the Liberals were refused pardon; and the former took office once more with a vastly increased majority, which

doubtless they will retain until the Conservative party's passion for suicide causes it to adopt protection again.

When we set ourselves to interpret the events briefly recalled above, we seem forced to the following conelusions. First, the nation was sick unto death of political charlatanry. Secondly, it realized that economic recovery was impossible so long as every day brought its new burden of unsound legislation. Thirdly, it gave the Conservatives a huge majority at the last General Election, simply because the Conservative policy seemed to be nearer to true Liberalism than that of either of the two other parties.

I doubt whether any careful student of British politics to-day can deny that the above paradox is really the clue to the mystery. It is notorious that a large portion of the electorate is free from party ties, and that this portion plays a decisive rôle in every General Election, though it is much less effective in bye-elections. But it is not generally recognized that the sympathies of the detached voter are very largely Liberal, in the true sense of the word. That is to say, he does not really believe that the State can make the individual citizen prosperous, happy, and good. Nor does he, except in moments of hysterical excitement, trust the kind of politician who is penniless when he begins his career of championship of the poor and, as the result of years of selfsacrificing toil on behalf of the under-dog, becomes extremely rich. The detached voter is often that humble and despised type of man who secretly is rather proud to find himself poorer now than he was before the war. He realizes that democratic institutions perish only through their own corruption, and that political interference with the economic, industrial, and commercial life of the nation inevitably gives rise to that fatal putrescence. He values his liberty, and knows that he can retain it only by refusing to cry for help to the State when times are hard. In short, the non-party British voter is innately Liberal, and thus at present in most parliamentary divisions he finds himself forced to vote for the Conservative candidate, whenever the latter will abstain from advocating the essentially socialistic policy of protection. I myself, standing as an independent candidate, have represented in five parliaments a huge working-class constituency, and have never, so far as I am aware, departed one hair's-breadth from that full individualism which is the political philosophy of real Liberalism. The Conservative party in the division usually

gives me loyal support. The Liberal party opposes me with a bitterness hardly equalled by that of the Socialists. And the unattached voter puts me in. The Liberal candidate advocates free trade with a loud voice, and in the next breath calls for housing subsidies, trade boards, and the like. Nor is this hopeless confusion confined to my constituency. For Sir Herbert Samuel, after piously doing poojah to the name of free trade, proposes nationalization of mineral royalites as a means for bringing about the syndicalization of a basic industry.

The reason for this rejection of Liberalism by the Liberal party will be made clear to the reader if he will try the experiment of composing an election address based wholly upon honest Liberal principles. He will then find that such an appeal has but few seductive qualities. For this reason the five hundred Liberal candidates that we hear of will not go down to the constituencies at the next General Election with any great amount of real Liberalism in their carpet-bags. They will carry samples a very different kind of goods, of gaudy ninepence-for-fourpence promises, and other political temptations of that description. And I cannot but believe that there is not a single self-respecting Liberal in the country who will not pray that his party may be spared the shame of success by such methods.

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Yet there is very grave danger that the Conservative party may bring this disgrace upon the name of Liberalism. Already we see among the Conservatives the recrudescence of that policy of protection which wrecked their party in 1906 and again in 1923, and will continue to wreck it until the Socialists become consistent enough and brave enough to declare openly that protection must of necessity be the main plank of the Socialist platform. Strong pressure is being brought to bear upon the Conservative leader to induce him to apply protection-by a childish deceit now called "safeguarding "to an industry of real importance. If he yields, the Conservative party will inevitably lose the agricultural vote, together with a great body of support from other industries which cannot be protected. Twice within the last generation has the Conservative party attempted to perpetrate this folly. And twice has it been smacked, and then forgiven by the nation. But, long as is the patience of the electorate, a third offence may well exhaust it and expose the country a second time to the danger of a Lloyd George régime. If, on the other hand, the Conservative