Then let's rejoice with loud fal, lal, fal, lal, la!
That Nature wisely does contrive (fal, lal, la!)
That every boy and every gal
That's born into the world alive
Is either a little Lib-er-AL
Or else a little Con-ser-va-TIVE.
Fal, lal, la!
—lOLANTHE
Thus warbled the muse of Gilbert & Sullivan in the great Gladstonian days of Liberalism.* But Fate, snickering, was even then implanting a new virus, "Laboritis," in the babes. Two infants, born to Conservative parents at the close of the Gladstonian era, grew up to political manhood, and last week vitally...