who is responsible for the muddled economics and
disagreeable fantastics of "G.K.'s Weekly."

This was the outlook of that official Liberalism which had long made
it so difficult for Gilbert to go on calling himself a Liberal. The
Servile State was in full swing and official Liberalism asked nothing
better than to be allowed to operate it. Whether Belloc and Cecil
Chesterton had been right or wrong at an earlier date in seeing the
political parties in collusion it is certain that by now an utter
bankruptcy in statesmanship had reduced them all to saying the same
things while they did nothing. Ten years later, on the day of the
last General election of his life, Gilbert wrote:

The Liberal has formed the opinion that Peace is decidedly
preferable to its alternative of War; and that this should be
achieved through support of the League of Nations interfering with
the ambitions of other nations. The Ministerialist, on the other
hand, holds that we should, if possible, employ a machinery called
the League of Nations; with the object of securing Peace, to which he
is much attached. The Ministerialist demands that strong action
should be taken to reduce Unemployment; but the Liberal does not
scruple to retort that Unemployment is an evil, against which strong
action must be taken. The Liberal thinks that we ought to revive our
Trade, thus thwarting and throwing himself across the path of the
National Tory, who still insists that our Trade should be revived.
Thus the two frowning cohorts confront each other; and I hear the
noise of battle even as I write.

In June 1928 he was invited to stand for Edinburgh University. He
replied:

I do hope you will forgive me if there has been any delay in
acknowledging your exceedingly flattering communication; I have been
away from home and moving about a good deal; and have only just
returned from London. Certainly there is nothing which I should feel
as so great an honour, or one so exciting or so undeserved, as to
receive even the invitation to stand for such a position in the great
University that has already been so generous to me. If you really
think it would be of any service to your cause, I can hardly refuse
such a compliment. Of course you understand that it is only in a
rather independent sense, though as I think in the right sense, that
I shall always call myself a Liberal; indeed, I find it diffic