At the opening of the proceedings of the dinner to
Lord Cromer, and before the admirable speech made by the chair- man, Lord George Hamilton, Mr. Arthur Elliot read the following letter from the Duke of Devonshire :—
" The main work which lies before the Unionist Party at present appears to be that of offering a strenuous resistance to a revival of the Home-rule policy and to certain ill-considered measures of a more or less Sociklistic tendency, the chief objections to which are of an economic character. The influence of the Unionist Party in this work would, in my opinion, be greatly impaired by the readoption, as one of its main objects, of a fiscal policy which was discarded as economically unsound by statesmen of all parties many years ago, and has been decisively, and, as I believe, rightly, condemned on similar grounds by the present constituencies at the last General Election. I trust, therefore, that the club, not only in the interests of Free-trade, but in those of Unionist principles, will continue to offer its strongest opposition to the adoption by the party of such a policy."
It is hardly necessary for us to say that we concur entirely in the Duke of Devonshire's statement. As we have pointed out elsewhere, the need for strong and united action on the part of the Unionist Party as regards Ireland becomes every
day more apparent.
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