and should remain in force during the currency of that Register. (c) A printed ballot paper shall be sent to every voter at the address registered by him for the purpose in such form and manner as will secure the secrecy of the ballot. (d) The ballot paper shall be returnable by post on or before the polling day, accompanied by a statutory declaration of identity in a prescribed form. (c) A person whose name is on the Absent Voters' List shall not be entitled to vote otherwise than as an absent voter.

III. THE SPEAKER'S COMMENT.

The Speaker adds the following:

In conclusion, I should like to bear witness to the admirable temper and conciliatory disposition which all the members of the conference showed in grappling with the difficulties confronting them. They were convinced, I feel sure, of the great desirability of amicably settling these thorny questions, and of finding a solution for issues fraught with the possibility of engendering grave domestic strife and internal friction. They were desirous of rendering, at a time when the national energies were almost wholly centred upon the successful prosecution of the war, a service which might prove of the highest value to the State, and result in equipping the nation with a truly representative House of Commons capable of dealing, and dealing effectively, with the many and gigantic problems which it will have to face and solve as soon as the restoration of peace permits of their calm and dispassionate consideration."

"" As a last word," Mr. Lowther pays a warm tribute to the services rendered by the Secretary, Mr. W. T. Jerred, C.B.

NOTES AND FIGURES.

THE TWENTY-FOURTH
VOLUME.

As each year one volume of the LIBERAL MAGAZINE ends and another begins, it has become the custom for the Editor to emerge, for the briefest possible period, from the dugout in which he lives for the rest of the year, and to present himself in the light of day to the subscribers and readers who constitute his constituency. Well, the Twenty-Fourth Volume ended with the January number, the Twenty-Fifth begins with this, and here I am again, with the cold wind cutting through me like a knife, and with my mind just a little puzzled as to what I shall say to you before the happy moment arrives for my return to the familiar seclusion of my dug-out.

A flash of recollection and my doubts are resolved, for I remember how, only a day or two ago, I had a visit from a friend who had overheard at his club a discussion on the LIBERAL MAGAZINE. "I can't think," said an Arm-Chair Critic, why they go on publishing it in these days. There's nothing Liberal about it, and it's only a collection of newspaper cuttings which everybody has already seen." Happily, his friend took a very different view. "I don't agree at all," he said; "I welcome the MAGAZINE each month

and have as a fact just been looking over again the issues for the last twelve months. Of course, it cannot continue its propagandist party work, but you cut no ice at all by that old plea about newspaper cuttings. I know you're a newspaper man, but do you really think we keep all our newspapers and mark the passages we may want to refer to? Well, I don't, and I find the MAGAZINE each month most interesting, and the bound volume a treasure house. When you get your next MAGAZINE look at it again and see if I'm not right. Oh!" said the Arm-Chair Critic, "it always comes each month, but I never read it." "I thought as much," said his friend, “well, I do, and I've told you what I think of it."

For my part, I am well content to report the difference of opinion, and to ask for judgment at the hands of our readers. The opinion of one is at least unmistakable, for in a letter received only this morning, a very keen judge of publications sends me "warm congratulations on the splendid arrangement of the War Items in the LIBERAL MAGAZINE.' As I said last year, it is inevitable that the circulation should be less than it was before the war; but it continues to be well-maintained, and stands at a far higher figure than I should have dared to hope for if 2 years ago I had been asked to estimate the diminishing effects on circulation of a world war. I and all responsible for the production of the MAGAZINE once again tender our thanks to our friends and readers for the staunchness of their support in these difficult and critical times.

February 1st, 1917.

THE GLADSTONE
MEMORIAL

IN EDINBURGH.

C. G.

One of the methods of commemorating Mr. Gladstone's memory in the scheme adopted by the Gladstone Memorial Committee was the provision of statues in the various capital cities. The first of these was unveiled at a site in the Strand in London on November 4th, 1905. Another was publicly inaugurated by Lord Rosebery in Edinburgh on January 18th last. In the case of the Scottish memorial, the delay of several years in its provision is attributable to reasons which were unavoidable. The statue, which is a noble work in bronze, is by Mr. Pittendrigh Macgillivray, R.S.A., and it represents Mr. Gladstone in his robes as Chancellor of the Exchequer. It stands in George Street, facing towards the superb stretch of Princes Street. At the unveiling ceremony apologies for non-attendance were read from members of the Gladstone family, amongst these being one from Mrs. Drew (Mr. Gladstone's daughter), who was with her father during most of the Midlothian campaigns. Lord Rosebery, in unveiling the memorial, said:

Standing under the shadow of that monument, and looking down George Street, my mind is so full of memories that I cannot refrain from a few words.

The Midlothian Election of 1880.

"It was on the night of April 5th, 1880, that Mr. Gladstone was dining in a house, now demolished, in this street, secured for his accommodation during the campaign. In the midst of dinner his agent, Mr. Reid, pale with excitement-I can see him now-entered and announced the victory. In an instant a vast crowd filled the street. It is difficult to know how they found the hero of the evening, but so it was. Of course, he had to appear and say a few words. It was a striking scene. On each side were his wife and daughter, holding flickering candles, and in front the vast multitude, which seemed to have sprung, as it were, out of the bowels of the earth. We who remember can see him as he spoke, his lyart haffits streaming in the wind, his words and spirit animating the multitude. It was indeed an immense personal triumph. Our stolid Lothians had gone wild with joy, and the enthusiasm spread like a fiery cross through Scotland, and again through England. All this, it may truly be said, the work of one man, and he seventy years of age. It was a political and personal victory as great as any recorded in our annals. Perhaps as we get older such party victories shrink in our estimation. Looking back at it through the mists of some forty years it would in any case diminish.

Europe of To-day.

'But now, with Hell let loose in Europe, with millions of men slaughtering each other for the destruction or protection of liberty, with cold murder by land and sea, with deliberate slavery of innocent populations, with the treacherous destruction of treaties and of monuments consecrated by history-in face of all this, the victory of Midlothian seems puny enough, almost a mimic warfare, to give one party or another, without bloodshed or infamy, the possession of political power. It seems, indeed, to have shrunk to a tournament. This Armageddon has shrivelled it to nothingness, just as the war loans at 5 per cent. have shrunk our once proud Consols. But, however small the Midlothian struggle may seem to those who were not involved in it, there is one clear figure which emerges for all time-the figure of Gladstone himself. What a marvel he was, in energy and intellect a great Parliamentarian, a great orator, a noble and high-minded statesman. More than all, what a man in character, in conscience, and in labour. From our earliest sight of him to the end, he was learning, studying, working. I used to think, as I looked at him, what a pity it was that at a stroke the inevitable hand of death should put an end to the vast accumulation of his life of eager toil, and silence this consummate energy and intellect. Well, the stroke came at last, and left to us the inspiration only of his example. And as in Midlothian we saw him at the highest point of his career, we had the right to commemorate that zenith. And to-day all parties without distinction can rejoice in his strenuous life.

A Memorial and Inspiration.

"We can even rejoice that he is no more. For he was a strenuous promoter of peace, a strenuous guardian of the public purse. What would he have felt in the slaughter-house in which we live to-day, with an expenditure of some six millions a day? It is anguish to all of us; it would have been agony to him. We do not, then, mourn for him to-day; we consecrate his life and his example. These great men form the pedigree of a nation, as their achievements are their country's titledeeds to honour. The dark mass of humanity passes to the grave silent

and unknown. It is these men who stand forth and mark the march of the generations. And here stands one who embodies honest faith, honest toil, and honest devotion to duty. Let all who pass look up and remember that. It was that which the teeming multitude acclaimed in George Street thirty-seven years ago, that which generations to come will remember with reverence. We rear, then, this statue, not merely as a memorial to him, but as an inspiration to ourselves."-(Edinburgh, January 18th, 1917.)

The sixteenth annual Conference of the LABOUR PARTY'S Labour Party was held at Manchester on WAR RESOLUTIONS. January 23rd-26th, when various resolutions on matters relating to the war were dealt with. The most striking of these war resolutions were as follows, the voting being taken by the card-ballot :

(1) Joining the Coalition Government. The first paragraph of the report of the Executive Committee described the circumstances which led to the acceptance by the Committee of Mr. Lloyd George's invitation to co-operate in the reconstruction of the Coalition Government. Mr. Arthur Henderson (a member of the War Cabinet) moved the adoption of this part of the report, and after discussion this was accepted, this automatically disposing of four resolutions condemning Labour participation in the Government. For the Executive Committee's Report, 1,849,000; Against, 307,000.

(2) International Socialist Congress and Peace." That this Conference expresses its fullest approval of the principle of the international solidarity of labour, and its conviction that the permanence of the peace settlement depends upon the influence wielded in that settlement by the united action of the international working class. Moreover, that as capitalist diplomacy as soon as the war ends will be ready to carry out its programme of annexations and redistribution of territory and its economic exploitation, and as the diplomats of all the belligerent nations will meet for that purpose, this Conference urges the Executive Committee to press for the summoning of the International Socialist Bureau with a view to the speedy reconstitution of the International and the calling together of the International Socialist Congress simultaneously with the Peace Congress."-For, 696,000; Against, 1,498,000. (An amendment for an Allied Socialist Congress was carried.)

(3) No Immediate Peace.-"This Conference declares that, seeing the invasion of Belgium and France by the German armies threatens the very existence of independent nationalities and strikes a blow at all faith in treaties, a victory for German Imperialism would be the defeat and destruction of democracy and liberty in Europe. It agrees that the fight should continue until victory is achieved, and that the Socialist and Trades Union organisation of the Allied Powers should meet simultaneously with the Peace Congress."-For, 1,036,000; Against, 464,000.

National Relief Fund.

The Executive Committee of the National Relief Fund, in their fourth report to the Prince of Wales on the administration of the fund covering the six months ended September 30th, 1916, state that the aggregate receipts amounted to £5,964,895. The total issues for naval and military relief amounted to £2,920,800, and for civil relief to £487,385. The balance in hand on September 30th was a little over two millions and a-half. Dealing with civil relief, the report states::

"So far as the industrial classes are concerned, there is practically no distress, except in the case of watering-places on the East Coast, where the acute depression was only slightly relieved during the summer months. Those coast towns whose prosperity depends primarily upon fishing and the letting of lodgings have suffered severely, and the depression is likely to continue. But with this exception the work of Local Committees has been limited to the provision of temporary assistance in sporadic cases of distress, and to the relief of victims of air raids and their dependents. The state of employment among women has remained so satisfactory that it has not been necessary for the Central Committee on Women's Employment to reopen any of their former schemes of employment or training. Efforts have been made to provide employment for lodging-house keepers in the depressed seaside resorts, but this class of worker is frequently too old to be readily adaptable, and in many cases there is no alternative to direct relief. So far as the future is concerned, the Committee see no reason to anticipate any material change in the present conditions during the continuance of the war. increasing needs of the Army and the consequent withdrawal of labour may make it difficult for certain of the smaller industries to be carried on, but any displacement of labour resulting from the temporary closing down of existing business would rapidly be met by the great demand for labour in other directions."

The

POINTS FROM THE PAPERS.

From the Morning Post, January 9th, 1917.

"We hope and trust that Sir Francis Oppenheimer is a humane gentleman, and we feel that, being humane, he was placed in an utterly impossible position. For not only were his friends and relations German, but his nearest and dearest relatives live in Germany, and he himself had lived in Germany most of his life. Therefore, as we said at the time, every turn of the screw that Sir Francis gave the blockade must have given him the most exquisite anguish, since it might be reducing the obesity of an uncle in Frankfort or tightening the corsets of an aunt in Charlottenburg."

It is indeed lamentable that the whole world can read this as a sample of British taste and humour. This sort of thing ought to be left to third-rate German journalists and publicists. That it should appear in a journal of the standing and pretensions of the Morning Post is a pitiable exhibition.