Ominous Oak Chest

Edward Grey, 1st Viscount Grey of Fallodon, is the calm, persuasive statesman with weak eyes who served for eleven consecutive years as Foreign Secretary, made the entente with France and Russia, reluctantly but vigorously led Great Britain into the World War. Last week, though his years are now three-score and seven, and though his eyes are very dim indeed, Lord Grey made a brief, dignified public statement which had the effect of a dynamite depth bomb on his party--Liberal.

In the General Election of last spring all Liberals stood together. Shoulder to shoulder fought the witty, opportunist youngsters who follow David Lloyd George, and the grave, steady-going oldsters who, like Lord Grey, are chiefly composed of moral fibres. It seemed as if the old feud between the factions had been extinguished, as though Lloyd George's titular leadership of the party had been finally accepted by the old Asquith faction misnamed the "Liberal Council" and headed by Lord Grey. Then, last week, with spectacular abruptness. Grey of Fallodon calmly declared: "Things were said during the last election to the effect that our want of confidence in Mr. Lloyd George's leadership no longer existed. That was not and is not true. Our feeling remains just as it was regarding Mr. Lloyd George's leadership and his 'Oak Chest.' "*

Continued he: "It is right, of course, that the leader of the party should have a good deal to do in how party funds are spent, but this is different. Mr. Lloyd George, in effect, told us [on the eve of the General Election] that if we didn't do what he wanted we would get no money. But even if the Liberal party can clear itself of its dependence upon Mr. Lloyd George's money there is still the question of our want of confidence in his leadership.

"He has not always been of the Liberal party. After a couple of elections he was the hero of the Conservative party, and after the War his leadership created a cleavage in the Conservative party. Precisely the same thing has happened in the Liberal party and the cleavage is quite as deep. We have no confidence in his leadership."

Having thus split the Liberal Party wide open once more, Lord Grey rather pathetically peered into the future with his weak eyes. "I foresee a Liberal revival," he prophesied. "Some Liberals are thinking of turning to the Labor party. I invite them not to be in a hurry to take definite, final decision. The Labor party is not undivided, and in the Conservative party there are rumblings which may precede an earthquake. We may be uncomfortable in the Liberal party, but we may in a short time find the situation in another party more uncomfortable still."

The Labor Party's Daily Herald jubilantly took a different view: "In the political fighting of the future there will be no room for half-and-halfers! The elector will have to choose between the Labor Party standing for the interests of the common people and the reorganization of society, and the Conservative Party struggling to conserve the possessions of the rich and the maintenance of the old order. Against that inevitable tendency the Liberal Party dashes itself in vain."

The same thing was soon said by the Conservative Daily Telegraph: "We are witnessing the end of organized Liberalism as a political force." Both major parties appeared gleeful at the prospect that the 5,000,000 Britons who last time voted Liberal may be obliged to choose, next time, between voting Laborite or Conservative. This would restore the historic two-party system of the British Parliament--the system which Britons think they see working so well in the U. S.

While last week's explosives were detonating below him, David Lloyd George was happily celebrating his 67th birthday. But most politically wise Britons surmised that the cocky little Welshman would think up plenty of drastic things to say about Viscount Grey's disturbance. Few if any could have foreseen the nature of his remarks. Summoning a meeting of the National Liberal Club, he extended toward his assailant a rhetorical glad hand which smacked much more of a rebuke than any amount of invective. Said he: "I appeal to Lord Grey not to discourage the party when it is really making headway. I beg of him to come in and help us with his great name and distinguished reputation and with the power he has of stating a case. Let us stop snarling and get on to business." Totally did he ignore the oaken chest, and Viscount Grey's praise of the Labor Government he characterized as "rather shabby."

*The reputed $15,000,000 fund raised by Mr. Lloyd George in the last years of his Prime Ministry, allegedly by selling peerages. He insists that he has never put a penny of the money in his own pocket, keeps it in the mythical Party Oak Chest to which he alone has the metaphorical key.

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