very marked tendency to step back again into that multitudinous
assemblage.

For multitudinousness has always been the Liberal characteristic.
Liberalism never has been nor ever can be anything but a diversified
crowd. Liberalism has to voice everything that is left out by these
other parties. It is the party against the predominating interests.
It is at once the party of the failing and of the untried; it is the
party of decadence and hope. From its nature it must be a vague and
planless association in comparison with its antagonist, neither so
constructive on the one hand, nor on the other so competent to
hinder the inevitable constructions of the civilised state.
Essentially it is the party of criticism, the "Anti" party. It is a
system of hostilities and objections that somehow achieves at times
an elusive common soul. It is a gathering together of all the
smaller interests which find themselves at a disadvantage against
the big established classes, the leasehold tenant as against the
landowner, the retail tradesman as against the merchant and the
moneylender, the Nonconformist as against the Churchman, the small
employer as against the demoralising hospitable publican, the man
without introductions and broad connections against the man who has
these things. It is the party of the many small men against the
fewer prevailing men. It has no more essential reason for loving
the Collectivist state than the Conservatives; the small dealer is
doomed to absorption in that just as much as the large owner; but it
resorts to the state against its antagonists as in the middle ages
common men pitted themselves against the barons by siding with the
king. The Liberal Party is the party against "class privilege"
because it represents no class advantages, but it is also the party
that is on the whole most set against Collective control because it