Liberal Unity
With the Liberal candidates again divided between the Liberal Nationals and Opposition Liberals in the 1945 general election, Henderson-Stewart sought a reunification, without success. When Parliament reassembled after the election, Henderson-Stewart was chosen as the Chairman of the Liberal National Parliamentary Party for the session. This made him unofficial party leader; however he served only for one year. In September 1947 he wrote to The Times suggesting that the Liberal Party should consider merging with the Conservatives, arguing that Liberalism "stands four square in opposition to Socialism" and should work together with Churchill. Shortly after, Henderson-Stewart's group formally joined with the Conservatives.
At the 1950 general election, the Liberal Party nominated David Alexander Freeman a 22 year old student at St Andrews University as a candidate against Henderson-Stewart, the first time they put a candidate up against him, and the controversy between them was described as "bitter". Henderson-Stewart increased his majority while the Liberal lost his deposit. In the new Parliament he kept up his campaign for the local fishing industry, calling for immediate action to prevent a crisis. He wanted controls on fish imports.
Read more about this topic: Sir James Henderson-Stewart, 1st Baronet
Famous quotes containing the words liberal and/or unity:
“Where you are liberal of your loves and counsels,
Be sure you be not loose; for those you make friends
And give your hearts to, when they once perceive
The least rub in your fortunes, fall away
Like water from ye, never found again
But where they mean to sink ye.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“Certainly for us of the modern world, with its conflicting claims, its entangled interests, distracted by so many sorrows, so many preoccupations, so bewildering an experience, the problem of unity with ourselves in blitheness and repose, is far harder than it was for the Greek within the simple terms of antique life. Yet, not less than ever, the intellect demands completeness, centrality.”
—Walter Pater (1839–1894)