(TO THE EDITOR OF THE "SFECTATOR."] SIR, - Will you allow an
old-fashioned Conservative to express his entire concurrence with the admirable letter from Mr. Oliver which appeared in your issue of the 23rd November ? Lord Lansdowne and Mr. Bonar Law, by going over to the more revolutionary and fanatical Tariff Reformers, have finally abandoned the Conservative Party, which is now as disorganized as the Turkish army. The question for Con- servatives—that is for the people who adhere to the old national creed—is whether they can find a Tchatalja line of entrenchments behind which they can rally in defence of the faith of their fathers. You, Sir, recommend Conservative Free Traders to do evil that good may come of it, that is, to abandon their individualistic and anti-revolutionary principles in favour of a system of State control of commerce—a system of sordid corruption by competing trusts ; a system which, at its best, would offer to the finishing industries the choice of paying blackmail to the semi-manufacturing industries or of organizing themselves into gigantic corporations which would control the whole system of production and manufacture, from the iron or coal mine to the sewing-machine or the steel pen. That way Socialism lies. For the trust is collectivism in the egg. Is this our only choice ? I hope not. Surely it is possible for Conservatives to say that they stand on the platform of political morality and will have nothing to do with predatory policies, whether they emanate from Wales or Birmingham. In any case I am sure that neither the Union, nor Ulster, nor the Church, nor the rights of property, nor individual liberty will be helped by our endorsement of a policy of State encroachment and State usurpation. We save nothing by abandoning our entrenchments and admitting the allied forces of Socialism and Protection within our last
line of defence.—I am, Sir, &c., GRAHAM BOWER. Studtvell Lodge, Droxford, Hants.
[We, of course, agree absolutely on the merits. But Sir Graham Bower forgets the Union, the intended outrage on Ulster, and the condition of civil war which must result. If we were the leaders of the Unionist Party we should have made a very different and, we are sure, a much wiser choice. But we are not its leaders, and they have decided, as we think wrongly, not to have a Referendum on the Food Taxes. That is a great evil, but it is, in our opinion, childish to bring about a much greater evil, i.e., Home Rule and the retention in power of the present Government, because we are angry with Mr. Boner Law and Lord Lansdowne. Voting for them gives us, at any rate, a chance of saving the Union. Voting for the Liberals would make its destruction certain. Till the greater evil is better than the lesser, we shall stand to the policy of choosing the lesser. If we are told that we are doing evil that good may come, we can only reply that so is the Unionist Free Trader who supports the Home Rule he hates in order to secure Free Trade. Remember, too, that Protection is still a stage behind Home Rule. It may be that it will never get itself formulated even though the•Unionists win.— ED. Spectator.]
Previous page
