LETTERS TO THE EDITOR.
LORD RANDOLPH'S CONVERSION TO RETRENCHMENT.
[To THE EDITOR OP THE " SPECTATOR.")
Sia,—Lord Randolph Churchill has left the Ministry because he disapproves of the proposal of his colleagues to increase military and naval expenditure, and consequently to increase taxation, which he wished to reduce. This no doubt means that he thinks "peace and retrenchment" will be a popular cry. In thinking that the electors will prefer a diminished Income-tax to national safety, he has probably made as great a mistake as Mr. Gladstone in 1874, when he dissolved Parliament with a promise to get rid of the Income-tax altogether, and met with a crushing defeat.
It is worth recalling that Lord Randolph, just before his departure for India—I think in the autumn of 1885—gave his ideas on financial policy to an interviewer from the office of the Pall Mall Gazette, and they amounted briefly to this : Protec- tion for everybody, and a Government that will feel no timidity
about spending money.—I am, Sir, &c., J. J. M.
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