Mr. Lloyd George desired to carry through the General Election with as little party contention as was possible, and therefore informal approaches were made to the Independent Liberals during the autumn with a view to bringing them back into the Coalition. Those negotiations broke down, not on any material difference of political opinion, but mainly on the question of the date of the General Election. Mr. Lloyd George refused to adopt, as a governing political principle, this new reluctance to appeal to a new electorate. With regret he found himself compelled to agree to a division in the Liberal Party between those who befriended the Government and those who opposed it, and it is notable that he carried with him the great majority of the old party. Many of the Coalition Liberals found, when they went down to their constituencies, that their Liberal Associations supported them with a practically unanimous vote. The provinces were less factious than the London Clubs. The Labour Party decided to leave the Coalition, to which they had adhered since December, 1916, and to fight the election as a body independent of all other parties. But even Labour did not leave the Coalition as a whole party, for in the process they became divided into several sections, and some of the ablest members of the Labour Party, including Mr. G. N. Barnes and Mr. G. H. Roberts, remained with the Government. The surprising lack of leadership in the Labour Party since the General Election, in spite of their notable victories at the polls, has been largely due to this division of forces, and to the fact that several members, such as Mr. Clynes and Mr. Brace, now acting as Independent leaders, were at heart in favour of remaining within the Government. The Labour Party, like the Independent Liberals, have also paid penalty for the spirit of faction. Deserted by the bulk of the Labour Party, and by the old leaders of the Liberal Party, Mr. Lloyd George had to form his Coalition out of the combination of those Liberals who remained faithful to him, and the undivided forces of the Unionist Party. He and Mr. Bonar Law issued a joint manifesto, and letters passed between them which defined the Coalition policy. It was necessarily a policy displeasing to both extreme wings. For it is the essence of a coalition that nobody can get all his own way. At home, as abroad, Mr. Lloyd George had to compromise. For, after all, it is the first duty of a Coalition to coalesce. The justification of such a policy of compromise on matters of grave civil moment was indeed to be found only in the gravity of the civil emergency. It was not from one party only that Mr. Lloyd George asked the sacrifice, and it is not by one party only that he has since been attacked.[138]