[To TEE EDITOR 07 THY "SPECTATOR."] SIR,—Stat nominis umbra. Mr.
Balfour's leadership has already joined the authorship of " Junius' Letters" in the limbo of questions which no longer signify:
"Gone glimmering through the dream of things that were," he vanishes from these garish lights for ever. By his own act with wonderful wisdom and grace he has averted what he himself called the irreparable tragedy of a divided party. One of rougher mould now holds the stage. What will he make of the heavy part which Mr. Walter Long and Mr. Austen Chamberlain, grimly self-denying, have declined in his favour ?
If Mr. Bonar Law were in doubt as to the first blow to to be struck with the rod of leadership placed in his hand by a reunited Unionist Party, the result of the Oldham election should decide him. In that typically industrial and particularly hard-headed constituency the combined Conservative and Labour majority against the National In- surance Bill was 9,000 out of 30,000. If stone were subject to emotion, surely John Bright's statue must have smiled at the declaration of the poll, for he has left on record his whole- hearted contempt for all such schemes as this.
Oldham standing alone would count for much. But it does not stand alone. In every by-election where the Insurance Bill has been an issue the same distrust and dislike of its enjust and arbitrary provisions has plainly shown itself. Liberal candidates are at their wits' end to defend even the principle. Not one of them has been able to explain the details, still less to make out a decent case for forcing it through Parliament this Session.
Why should the Unionist Party share the blame of such wrong-doing, as they will if they allow the Bill to pass ? Let them vote like one man against the third reading in the House
of Commons, and give it short shrift in the House of Lords. In no other way can they deliver so severe a check to the Government or command respect for Unionist policy in the
coming struggle.—I am, Sir, Sze., E. W.
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