LETTERS TO THE EDITOR..
LIBERAL UNIONISTS AS A PARTY.
[To TILT EDITOR OP THE "SPECTATOR."]
'Sxa,—The speeches of Mr. Gladstone in the West are full of encouragement to Liberal Unionists, and of incentive to fresh effort. Without reading those speeches, it is difficult to realise the enormous influence which this comparatively small party has exercised on the political history of the last three years. While the Home-rule journals and orators of the stamp of Sir William Harcourt have been singing 'mans over our rapid decay and approaching death, the great leader him- self fills his speeches with invectives against us, on the ground that it is our firmness alone which has prevented the Tories -from conceding the demands of the Irish Nationalists. If Mr. Gladstone is right, we might, but for the Liberal Unionists, have had a " National " Parliament now sitting in Dublin, and we might even now have been discussing how to deliver the million and a half Irish Unionists whom we had betrayed, from the vengeance of the triumphant majority, or how to take back the fatal Pandora-gift which we had so rashly bestowed. If it is indeed we who have "kept the bridge," can there be a better tribute to the soundnef s o! the policy which has kept the Liberal Unionist Party distinct, and spares no exertion to render its organisation complete, rather than allow it to be merged in the Conservative phalanx?
Previous page
