A CENTRE PARTY.
Vre ins EDITOR OF TRH "SPROTETOR.1 SIR,—Will you allow me to say how thankful I, a non- political country parson, am to see that you have begun to suggest the formation of a Centre Party before the next General Election P I am dead against Protection, McKenna education, and Home-rule; and were I a voter in the Ash- burton, instead of, as I am thankful to be, in the Totnes, division of Devon, I should not know how to vote, though I like Mr. Buxton's admirably clear statements of Free-trade principles. Captain Morrison-Bell pleads for Protection, though he would call it by another name, and I doubt not that he, like the Unionist Party generally, will find that, in spite of his personal advantages due to long residence in the division, this same Protection is as a millstone about his neck, for the labourere have not yet forgotten the old bad days of low wages and dear bread. And yet I do not believe that those same labourers care for Home-rule, or wish to turn the parson and the Catechism out of the village school, for they know that the clergy as a rule are the only people in country districts who care two straws about education either for their Childreii or themselves. Give us, then, either a Centre Party br, what would perhaps be better still, the Referendum, and save us from political suicide,—self-disfranchisement.—I am, [Three years ago—that is, at the height of Mr. Chamber- lain's agitation—there were comparatively few Unionists who agreed with Mr. Mallock. Now there are many. In a short time there will be a great many more.—ED. Spectator.]
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