THE PROPOSED " CONCORDAT" WITH UNIONIST FREE-FOODERS.
[To THE EDITOR OV THE "SPECTATOR."] SIR,—Will you allow me to say that when you judged by the tone of my letter (Spectator, December 19th) that I do " not realise the great national peril involved in a failure to defeat, and defeat permanently, the policy of Protection." you judged me wrongly ? My position was that there is no necessity whatever why the fullest realisation of the national peril should force us to ignore other vital questions with which the next Liberal Government is pledged to deal. Your correspondent " Z." (whose attitude you commend) does not radically differ from me when he says that " a working arrangement" on the part of the Unionist Free-fooders with the Liberal party is possible only if there be a " friendly under- standing" on "the amendment of the Education Acts, and a change of War Office administration." He sees " no solution without these minimum conditions." My difference from him is chiefly practical : I do not think that the Unionist Free- feeders can be brought to a "friendly [and satisfactory] understanding" with the Liberal party on the education question ; and apart from such friendly and satisfactory understanding no one could ensure to them the Liberal vote. Even if such an understanding could be arranged, there would be no actual parallel between the circumstances of the hour and those of 1886. At and after that date the Liberal Unionists supported a Conservative Government in all its measures. If the Unionist Free-fooders could be counted on to do the like for a Liberal Government, of course all difficulty
would vanish.—I am, Sir, &c., JoaN MASSIF. Oxford.
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