It is difficult to know whether any one who is outside politics should under any circumstances return to them; for his reappearance has the air of an intrusion, and is therefore resented. On the other hand there are occasions when common honour and honesty seem to compel any one who has deep convictions not to withhold them from his fellow-countrymen.
I think the crisis in which this speech was delivered is one of this kind. It is of course painful to any one to have to put himself in opposition to old friends and to a party with which he was long connected. As, however, the Liberal critics of the speech have all declared that it is wholly ineffectual and vapid, they have evidently sustained no damage by its delivery.
I may notice, however, the allegation that I have suddenly left the Liberal Party. I think the fact would be more accurately stated if it was alleged that the Liberal Party had left me. They have gone ahead with alarming velocity: I, on the other hand, have proceeded perhaps too slowly. I am much where I was, they have shot far in advance. Still it is not I who have left them, but it is they who have left me behind.
I am where I was five, ten, thirteen years ago in respect of party ties.
