LETTERS TO THE EDITOR.
THE LIBERAL PARTY AND THE UNIONISTS.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."] SIR,—The letter of your correspondent, "A Unionist," is a happy illustration of the failure "to see ourselves as others see us." He finds my letter characterised by "remarkable naiveté and self-complacency," and then proceeds immediately to prove his own immunity from any such weakness by classifying himself as one "of the more thoughtful of the Liberal Party." Then he proceeds to lecture me because I prefer a supporter of what is "now the pet measure of the Liberal Party," to a free-lance who tries to break up his party for reasons which I consider inadequate and mischievous. Rather than support such a man, I said that I would have voted for the Tory. There is a freely elected Liberal Association in the Gower Division of Glamorganshire, on which the miners have an opportunity of being fairly represented. Having accepted this Association as fairly representative, it was, in my opinion, unfair and dishonourable to reject the gentleman elected by the Association, and try to force on the whole Liberal Party a candidate of a mere section. The intolerance was all on the side of the miners, and rather than encourage such dishonour- able intolerance, I would have voted for the Tory. For the same reason, I would rather see a Tory returned for Mid-Lanark than the candidate who stands there as the representative and cat's-paw of Messrs. Champion, Conybeare, and Co. I am a Radical, and for that very reason deprecate a policy of which the effect would be to create a Parliament of groups as in France, and thereby destroy Parliamentary government altogether.
But your correspondent, who is so indignant with me for thinking that it is of the essence of the representative system that the minority should submit to the decision of the majority, while doing their best meanwhile to turn their minority into a majority, conveniently forgets the tactics of his own party. He denounces me because I would have voted for a Tory rather than for a man who does all the harm he can to the cause of Home-rule, and himself belongs to a party which in every con- stituency supports a Tory in preference to a Home-ruler, though the Tory may be a violent Protectionist, and the Home- ruler everything which "the more thoughtful of the Liberal Party" desires on every question save Home-rule. The Gracchi complaining of sedition were nothing to the self-complacent intolerance of your correspondent.—I am, Sir, &c., A HOME-RULER.
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