The assurance of the Liberals that they are the friends of Labour is doubted in view of the attitude of the party towards Labour candidates. "Liberals are continually saying that there is no quarrel between Liberalism and Labour. Why, then, do we have the constantly recurring spectacle of a middle-class Liberal being run against a popular and capable man who can claim to directly represent the people who live by the work of their hands and heads as distinguished from those who live upon rent, dividends, or interest? Are there not even upon the Liberal side plenty of landlords, railway directors, bankers, stockbrokers, and employers of labour, that a seat cannot be spared to a workman till he wins it in despite of Liberal and Tory opposition alike?"[649] An amalgamation of the Liberals and the Socialist-Labour members is impossible. "Liberal-Labourism" is a delusion. "Labour men and capitalist Liberals are beginning to see that individualism and co-operation will not mix. If Liberalism to-day swallows Labourism, it will have a severe attack of indigestion. Mr. Keir Hardie in the Liberal ranks would do more to disrupt and destroy the Liberal party than he can possibly do from the outside. Labour, it is true, might capture the Liberal party, and this is advocated by some, but if this took place the party would wither away. The capitalist element would drop out and Labour would be left alone. Labour might just as well build up a new party outside. It is no use capturing a weapon which crumbles to pieces as soon as you grasp it. Better make a new weapon."[650] "The Labour party in the House of Commons is as yet not disliked only because as yet it is not feared. Until it has made itself both disliked and feared, it will be far short of having fulfilled the objects of its very existence. It is not saying too much to say that in the very near future the measure of the Labour party's effectiveness will be its unpopularity in the House of Commons. Acrimonious as are the feelings often evoked by political controversies, they are urbanity itself as compared with the passions aroused over economic issues. The limits of Liberal concession must needs soon be reached. The Liberal-Labour candidate is but a transient phenomenon of our time, and with his disappearance the storm will break."[651] The great Liberal majority was created by accident and it is rapidly dissolving. "The Liberals succeeded to power through no merit of their own, but merely through the errors of their opponents. Liberalism is shedding its supporters at both ends, and is rapidly on the way to becoming a mere _caput mortuum_."[652] It is true that "at the general election many Socialists climbed into Parliament on the backs of the Liberals,"[653] but Liberal-Socialist co-operation is not possible.