The controversy in regard to the state of the Unionist
Party is being carried on with unabated vigour in the Morning Post. Mr. Baumann has contributed on the Unionist Free-trade side two most able and convincing letters, and one or two other anti-Tariff Reformers have supported him. On the whole, however, the great majority of the correspondents show that they have ailed to understand the lesson of the last General Election, and to realise how absolutely impossible it is that the Unionist Party shall regain power as 'long as it
emblazons on its banners the taxation of bread, meat, cheese, and milk,—the essential foods of the people. The most menacing feature in the correspondence is the desire expressed by so many of the Tariff Reformers to make up for the unpopularity of their Fiscal policy by advocating Socialistic legislation. As long as they call it "Social Reform" instead of "Socialism," they seem willing to commit themselves to the greater part of the Socialistic programme. When will a Con- servative statesman arise bold enough and able enough to make the Unionist Party see that their only road back to power lies in a vigorous opposition to Socialism, and in lightening the burden of the taxpayer rather than in saddling him with the expense of providing universal old-age pensions, of freeing parents from the duty of feeding their children, and of endowing the unemployed till they become the unemployable ?
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