THE LIBERAL PARTY AND THE UNIONISTS.
[TO THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."] SIR,—Your correspondent, " A Home-ruler," expresses, with remarkable naivete and self-complacency, the tone of thought which has driven into revolt so large a section of the more thoughtful of the Liberal Party. " The party, and nothing but the party," is his motto. Sir George Trevelyan, in his recent speeches, has taken the same line, though with more dignity and moderation. The Glamorganshire miners con- sider some other measure as of greater importance than the one which is just now the pet measure of the Liberal Party,— therefore the Glamorganshire miners must be suppressed. I do not agree with the Glamorganshire miners on this par- ticular point. But, thinking as they do, they were clearly right, on every principle which Liberals hold dear, in giving expression to their convictions by their votes. This frank expression of the new Liberal creed, that all freedom of opinion in the party must be sternly suppressed, and voters " diseip- liued" into mere machines for registering the views of their leaders, will confirm many a Unionist in the soundness of his decision, that for the present he has no alternative but to dissociate himself altogether from the councils of the party, though this decision has been arrived at, as you yourself have said, with the greatest sorrow and regret.—I am, Sir, &c., A UNIONIST.
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