We have no fault to find with a view which
vindicates all the principles which to Liberal Unionists are the dearest of all principles; but we have pointed out elsewhere that democratic principles, though Liberals accept them as in- evitable, and even beneficial in the long-run, are not by any means identical in drift with Liberal principles, and often involve a real retrogression from the point of view which Liberals hold to be the highest and wisest. In almost all democratic communities except Great Britain, Free-trade is at present regarded with something like scorn ; and there is plenty of evidence that in some democratic countries the bigotry of irreligion is as threatening as ever was the bigotry of religious conviction. Neither in France, nor in Germany, nor in Italy, nor in the great Colonies of Great Britain, can we doubt for a moment that Liberal principles are often under eclipse, and not nnfrequently even in disgrace, with the regnant democracy.
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