26 MARCH 1881, Page 13

WHY THE WHIGS DO NOT TURN TORIES.

(TO THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR:1 .8 IR,—While thanking you for the very polite terms in which you refer to myself in your article of last Saturday, " Why the Whigs do not Turn Tories," may I be allowed to point 'out that the reasons which I assign for the expediency of such a junction, and not the junction itself, represent the final cause of my own essay on the subject P The fusion of these parties has beeu recommended, and its possibility discussed, very 'often. .But what has not been considered is that, whereas the party system was founded upon the existence of two parties in 'the State, we are now trying to carry it ou by means of -several ; and that the multiplication of parties may end in reducing them to fractions. I wished, if possible, to set some 'inquiry on foot into the working and apparent tendencies of this particular anomaly, which seems to have escaped the notice 'of political writers, During the first ten years of the reign of 'George Il T.., parties proper degenerated into a horde of factions, with what results we all know ; and though a return to the system of two parties entails, almost as a matter of necessity, the fusion of the Conservative-Liberals such as you describe, with the Liberal-Conservatives such as I describe, I have sug- gested it only, in my recent article, as a means to an end, though .from my own point of view highly desirable upon other grounds as well. The existence of three parties seems to me to place a dangerous weapon in the hand of minorities, by means of which the real opinion of the country may at any :time be defeated or defrauded--I am, Sir, &c.,

T. E. Knurl..