LTO THE EDITOR OF TUNS "SPECTALT010 . 1 Sin,—Like many, doubtless, of
your readers, I am most grieved that the Spectator should assist the Unionist Free- traders in their aggressive action against the unity of the Unionist Party. Speeches like that of Lord Cromer are most ill-advised at the present juncture. Yet week after week you keep hammering away at the old Free-trade points, and not a single word explanatory of the Tariff Reform position is allowed to appear in your columns. Your zealous advocacy even compels you to make statements that one is really surprised to observe in the Spectator. For example, you hay( recently insisted that Tariff Reform represents the same habit of mind as Socialism. In reality they are as opposed as possible. Socialism, as the recent Congress of the Labour Party shows, would derive all our revenue from direct taxa- tion; Tariff Reform would rely upon indirect taxation, which, as John Stuart Mill showed, is much easier, less felt, and more popular in its incidence. Then, again, your state. meat last week that the Unionist Free-traders "would be far more likely to win back seats front the enemy than would the Tariff Reformers" reads strangely after the astonishing result in Mid-Devon, and the fact that not a single Unionist Free-trader has won a contested seat since the General Election. However, my object in writing is not to draw attention to these facts, but to correct an apparent mis- apprehension. You write as if the Conservative Central Office has power to interfere with the selection of candidates. The Central Office acts on the wise rule of non-interference, except when it is invited to do so by both sides. The selection of a candidate is in every case left to the local association. When once that body has exercised its choice, neither the alleged " Confederates " nor the Central Office can interfere. If any Unionist Free-trade candidate can command the support of the majority of the local associa- tion, he is free to stand, and will receive the support of the Central Office. For example, Mr. Ian Malcolm, a
Free-trader, has just been selected to contest North Salford. More than this impartiality you cannot in reason demand. Your suggestion that "in a certain number of constituencies Unionist candidates with Free-trade views should be selected" depends entirely upon the local Unionist associations.—I am, [" C.'s " letter should have been addressed, not to us, but to the Morning Post. It was the Morning Post, not the Spectator, which encouraged the notion that the Confederates have a right to demand that the Central Office shall withdraw its recognition from the Unionist candidate in East Notts unless he expresses himself willing to abandon his Free-trade views. —ED. Spectator.]
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