After the great split of 1886 a genuine lover of Freedom in the upper strata of society was so rare a character that people encountering him instinctively asked, “Is he insincere?  Or only mad?” Deserted by the aristocracy, Liberty turned for her followers to the great Middle Class; but there also the process of apostasy had begun; and substantial people, whose fathers had fought and suffered for Freedom, waxed reactionary as the claims of Labour became more audible, and betook themselves to the side of Authority as being the natural guardian of property.  If you make the division geographically, you may say, in the broadest terms, that the North stood firm for Freedom; but that London and the South were always unfriendly to it, and, after 1886, the Midlands joined the enemy.

If we apply a test which, though often illusory, cannot be regarded as wholly misleading, the Metropolitan Press was, in a remarkable degree, hostile to Freedom, and reflected, as one must suppose, the sentiments of the huge constituency for whom it catered.  How many friends could Irish Nationalism count?  How many could Greece, in her struggle with Turkey?  How many the Balkan States?  How many Armenia?  How many, even in the ranks of professed Liberalism, opposed the annexation of the South African Republics?  At each extension of the suffrage; at each tussle with the Lords; at each attempt to place the burden of taxation on the shoulders best able to bear it, few indeed were the friends of Freedom in the upper classes of society; in the opulent Middle Class; in London and the Midlands and the South; in the Church, alas!; in the Universities, the Professions, and the Press.

And yet, at the present moment, from these unlikely quarters there rises a diapason of liberty-loving eloquence which contrasts very discordantly with the habitual language of five years ago.  To-day the friends of Freedom are strangely numerous and admirably vocal.  Our Lady of Liberty, one thinks, must marvel at the number and the energy of her new worshippers.  Lapses from grace are not unknown in the after-history of revivals, but we must, in charity, assume the conversion to be genuine until experience has proved it insincere.  And to what are we to attribute it?  Various answers are possible.  Perhaps, as long as it was only other people’s liberty which was imperilled, we could look on without concern.  Perhaps we never realized the value of Freedom, as the chief good of temporal life, till the prospect of losing it, under a world-wide reign of force, first dawned on our imagination.  Perhaps—­and this is the happiest supposition—­we have learnt our lesson by contemplating the effects of a doglike submission to Authority in corrupting the morals and wrecking the civilization of a powerful and once friendly people.

But, theorize as we may about the cause, the effect is unmistakable, and, at least on the surface, satisfactory.  To-day we all are the friends and lovers of Liberty—­and yet the very multitude of our new comrades gives us, the veterans in the cause, some ground for perplexity and even for concern.  “He who really loves Liberty must walk alone.”  In spite of all that has come and gone, I believe that this stern dogma still holds good; and I seem to see it illustrated afresh in the career, so lately closed amid universal respect and regret, of Leonard, Lord Courtney.[*]