LORD ROSEBERY'S LEADERSHIP.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR.")
SIR,—In common with others of your readers to whom I have spoken (and in many country towns there is quite a comradeship among your subsoribers), I think you seem inclined to push your ad captandum analogy between the case of Lord Rosebery and that of General Boulanger to an unjustifiable length. General Boulanger's ultimate aim was an unconstitutional one; Lord Rosebery's is not. A would- be Dictator can only decently succeed by dictating; a candi- date for any constitutional position can, surely, only decently succeed by exhibiting his qualifications and awaiting election. And it would not have been decent of Lord Rosebery " immediately after the Chesterfield speech" to have set more 19g-rolling machinery in motion, as you so temerariously suggest. You are quite wrong, too, in my humble opinion, in " concluding " that Lord Rosebery's position has recently
declined, or is declining. I believe the exact opposite, certainly np here .in the North, to be the case. Witness, for one thing, the fact that the seats for the Liver- pool meeting (at 7s. 6d. apiece) were applied a for over and over again within six hours of the opening of the list. Mr. Gladstone's case you cite, I submit, illogically. Lord Rosebery, as was Mr. Gladstone, is already leader ; and, as such, he is being steadily welcomed back into the seat he vacated. I admit that the new movement is being badly engineered. Lord Rosebery wants a stage-manager. His Liverpool appearance should have been a rally for all South-West Lancashire: Liverpool should have had so many seats, St. Helens so many, Southport so many, Warrington so many, Wigan so many, and so on ; instead of which the seats have been sold, apparently, to the first corners, in Liver- pool itself merely. It looks as though the seven-and sixpences were " the thing,"—not the magnetisation of a gang of possible " navvies " from every neighbouring electoral trench. It may be, of course, that Liberal Federation Liberals in the local constituencies have had their " calls." I do not know. I take considerable interest in Imperial politics ; but I cannot even recall the names of the people, whoever they may be, who represent St. Helens on the National Federation. And (possibly worse still) I do not want to know. It is enough for me that they brought Mr. C. A. V. Conybeare down as the Liberal candidate at the last election But this is, perhaps, beside the mark. Lord Rosebery's flag is flying, and Im- perialist Liberals everywhere are rallying to it. We are sick of Campbell-Bannermans and Lloyd-Georges : we want double-brained men, not double-named men. Why not a " New Liberal Senate," with Rosebery for its President; Asquith, Fowler, and Grey for its Vice-Presidents ; " four E's" (Efficiency, Education, Equality, and Empire) for its watchwords; and (dare one breathe it ?) the Spectator for its surprised sponsor P—I am, Sir, &e., H. L. RILEY. St. Helens, Lancashire.
[We sincerely trust that our correspondent's forecast may prove more correct than our own, though we cannot honestly say that we see the hopeful signs which he detects.—En. Spectator.]
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