THE PARNELLITE PARTY.
[To THE EDITOR OF TEE "SPECTATOR."]
SIR,—In his letter in your issue of July 31st, wherein he seeks to correct alleged errors on your part, Mr. H. P. Cobb entirely misrepresents the facts, so far as they relate to the vote of the agricultural labourers in his own electoral district. Haymaking had little or nothing to do with the moral defeat he sustained in the large diminution of the majority he had at the election last autumn. The falling-off in the number of Mr. Cobb's supporters was due generally to the unconquerable aversion many of his former supporters had to the Gladstonian Irish proposals. Repeatedly during the campaign I received from agricultural labourers who were Liberals this answer :— " Well, Sir, we don't like this Irish Home-rule scheme, and shan't vote for it; but Cobb beat the Tories for us last year, and we don't like to vote against him and Mr. Glad- stone." There was ample time for every labourer, whether haymaking or otherwise, to go to the poll, and Mr. Cobb took care that every man polled who could be induced to do so. A further answer to Mr. Cobb's letter to you is that the falling-off in the agricultural vote is not greater than in the urban con- stituencies. Why should Mr. Cobb assume that the abstainers in the counties abstained from inability to poll, when that was clearly not the case in the urban constituencies ?
The whole course of the General Election shows that the agricultural labourer is not Gladstonian on his Irish policy, and Warwickshire was no exception to the rule.—I am, Sir, &c.,
(Election Agent of Mr. M. C. Baszard, Q.C., for South-East Warwickshire.)
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