During the tumult of the American election, the western world has not forgotten to watch the fulfillment of prophecies which foretold little good for English Liberals. The loss of two-thirds of their seats in Commons, with the adoption into Baldwin's new cabinet of a former Liberal, Winston Churchill, and Liberal-Coalitionists, are symptoms of the disappearance of the half-way party. In fundamental agreement with the Tory policy which intends to preserve the status quo in politics and economics with just the necessary minimum of flaunting promises to catch the worker's vote, the Liberals had really lost all excuse for insisting upon a separate existence as soon as the protective tariff was defeated in the election of last January.

But if the Liberal party has died, it is because the purposes for which it lived have nearly been accomplished. The great work of the Liberals was to free English political life from the craping molds which bound it a hundred years ago. The extension of suffrage to the whole adult population, the release of education from church control, the freeing of the infant giant of industry from the tariff which favored the old hereditary landowners, the solution of the Irish problem these were the triumps of Liberalism. But they are all triumphs of negation. Once its destructive work was completed, Liberalism had no more tasks to turn to: its slogan continued to reiterate the old, old catchwords, while a new England was turning to a new party for a constructive program. After a of growing-pains, England was looking for fresh shapes into which to crystallize its future. The Labor party made itself the champion of change, while the Tories kept to their tradition of motionless progress. The unhappy Liberals, wracked by the conflict between activity to maintain the society which their reforming zeal had created and desire to remain in the van of "forward-lookers," have, relying on their tradition of laissez-faire, opposed the quasi-Socialism of the Laborites, and thrown in their fate with the Conservatives. The negative program of Liberalism, in accomplishing itself, has destroyed the Liberal party. The bloodless creature, formed by the Liberals as a guide and lantern, has stifiled its creators. If Liberals hold to their tradition, they will inevitably identify themselves completely with the party of inaction, for the task and glory of remarking England have fallen under the championship of a more courageous and more vigorous party.