ME LIBERALS AND THE HOME-RULERS.
[TO THE EDITOR OF THE SPECTATOR:'] Sra,—May I again ask a little of your space to explain that I did not say, in my former letter, that a constituency had better return a real Home-ruler, than an imprudent conceder ? In the passage you refer to, I was not speaking of constituencies at all. Having in view Mr. King-Harman's Lord-Lieutenancy (though I do not defend Ministers in that), I said it was one thing for "the Government not to ostracise Irish gentlemen who happen to be convinced Home-rulers, and quite another thing for English candidates who are not Home-rulers at all" to make disin- genuous concessions in order to catch Home-rule votes. But I might have said it, and on no Quixotic grounds, for the simple reason that in England true Home-rulers are rare, while "imprudent concession" is "as easy as lying." I dis- claim all intention to include Lord Ramsay in the insinuation which may be thought to lurk in the last phrase. I do mean it to apply to the practice, if it should grow up, of imitating his course as part of the tactics of the party. You weigh a par- ticular man's weaknesses or crotchets, even on important sub- jects (at least, when critical decisions on those subjects are not imminent), against his general merits, because they are under- stood to be individual, and therefore limited in their effects ; and because they may be honest in him, though you are sure that their adoption by the average man could not be honest.
I venture to repeat my strong conviction that if the Liberal party managers patronise Home-rule as an electioneering dodge to catch Irish votes, they will do what is both dishonest and impolitic ; and that if individual candidates do it, the chances are that they will deserve the like censure. I assure you that I have no sort of intention of "discriminating too finely between different shades of purpose "—a danger which apologists for the conceding candidates are more likely to fall into—and that I feel a very novel glow of inward satisfaction at being found guilty by the Spectator of morbid scrupulosity !—I am, Sir, tic., Lincoln's Inn, February 16th. 0.
[What we contended for and contend for, is that there is no pretence at all for the assertion that, in relation to the Liver- pool election at all events, the Liberal party managers did patronise Home-rule as an electioneering dodge. Lord Ramsay's mistake was his own only ; and we believe that no party leader would have been worthy of his position who had not, in Lord Hartington's place, expressed his wish that Lord Ramsay might carry the day, in spite of that mistake. There are too many Liberals who exert themselves so much to pick holes in every attempt of their leaders to give an impulse to the united action of their party, that they succeed in discouraging hearty combination by their scruples, more than they strengthen it by their help.—En. Spectator.]
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