LETTERS TO THE EDITOR.
A WORD OF COUNSEL.
MO TEE EDITOR OP THE "SPECTATOR."] SIE,W11.1 you allow me to say with what great pleasure I read your " Word of Counsel " to Liberal Unionists in the Spectator of September 15th ? Your advice is admirable that the personal and Parliamentary aspects of the question should be dropped out of sight, and that the great Unionist principles involved should be brought directly before the nation; while certainly those of us who know something of the temper of the nation, most heartily agree with you in thinking that legislation should as speedily as possible be undertaken on the agrarian question. It should be remembered, though the fact is, I think, sometimes lost sight of, that nothing appeals more to the sympathies of working men than an eviction. Among the better-to-do classes, imprisonment, with its atten- dant privations, is the most dreaded fate ; but it is the breaking- up of his home which is the last insupportable misery to a. working man. School Boards have found this out. A man may be imprisoned quietly, but a distraint rouses a whole neighbourhood ; and from this point of view—indeed, from every point of view—it does seem imperative that the sensa- tional misery which is now exciting anger in the breast of every elector in all the Three Kingdoms (of course, from different standpoints) should be put an end to by conciliatory legislation.
And, in regard to the position of the ordinary elector, Sir, will you allow me to say that I think you at once do him too much and too little justice ? So far from having the means of testing the truth, as you put it, of Mr. Gladstone's state- ment about King Bombe, he knows nothing of the facts what- ever, and most probably has never wanted to know. A very considerable part of him has been born at a much later period than that to which many of Mr. Gladstone's recollections refer. His Board-school education has never taken him out- side the history of his own island, and has generally there left him in a fog somewhere in the feudal system ; his evening paper, or his alternative weekly, is generally ardently partisan, and supplies him with carefully selected facts; and even if his money would enable him to buy the Times, he has not the leisure or the literary ability to read it. He is in many cases entirely ignorant that any Land Acts have been passed; he is quite unaware that there has been any legislation as to arrears ; and though he knows there is a Coercion Act, to say that he knows nothing about its provisions is to faintly express his ignorance on the matter. It is to electors like these that the admirable, lucid, and statesmanlike address given by Mr. Chamberlain last week in Bradford, will be of such essential service.
The English elector has lately supped full of Irish horrors, which have been presented to him without any softening explanation, or any particular regard to the century in which they occurred, and we ought to be exceedingly thankful that our Unionist leaders have now taken up the matter in the admirably popular manner in which Mr. Chamberlain has introduced the question.
But, Sir, while thinking you over-estimate the knowledge and the power of obtaining knowledge possessed by the English elector, I think you scarcely do justice to his extra- ordinary good sense and moderation of character, his powers of forming a correct judgment, and, as I may say, the great conservative virtues he possesses (not meaning the word in a political sense). We have had more than one instance of politicians intoxicated by the splendid receptions given them on public platforms, who have believed they could lead the people anywhere, but who have found that to be cheered as a favourite was one thing, to be followed beyond the bounds of sober judgment was another. The one thing that is necessary is to lay the actual facts before the people, so that they may have the means of forming a correct judgment, and that judgment will be found to be in this case overwhelmingly Unionist. Of that I am well assured.—I am, Sir, &c.,
LIBERAL UNIONIST.
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