7 DECEMBER 1918, Page 2

The Morning Post of Monday published an admirable letter from

Lord Salisbury containing reflections on the General Election. There are many ways, he says, of mismanaging a nation.. There are, for example, the well-known methods of the Turks, the Russians, and the Germans. We need not fear such colossal blunders as those people have been guilty of, but we ought to have a very wholesome dread, of a humbler type of mistake which is to be found in the attempt of those in authority " to try to outmanoeuvre the people." The moral stook of the politicians has certainly fallen rather low, and Lord Salisbury, in our opinion, is perfectly right in laying the blame for what the Government suffer on the Government them- selves. Their attitude, he says; " has reacted upon the wage- earning classes, and these, instead of trusting. politicians with the- confidence to which as fellow.countrymen they ought to be entitled, are.filled with suspicion. . . . They are afraid that every proposal contains a trap."