SOCIALISM AND LIBERALISM.
[To TIM EDITOR Or TIM "SPROTATOR." J SIR,—As the Spectator stands as representative for the Free- trade school of economics, may the writer, a Tariff Reformer, invite your attention to the recent action taken, by Mr. Arthur Pousonby, who was secretary to the late Sir H. Campbell- Bannerman and bite Liberal candidate for Taunton P This gentleman, as representing Liberalism, and by reason of his late office speaking with a certain authority, chooses to send a message to the Taunton Liberals calling on them, during the contest which ended on Tuesday, to turn themselves fer the nonce into Socialists, and vote for the Socialist candidate. Now the writer presumes that it is common ground that at the moment the set of the tide seems against the Free-trader. Party politics must ebb and flow ; to-day he is getting the worst of it, to-morrow may be the turn of his opponent. Yet great as may be the divergence of opinion between Liberal and Conservative, I submit that, viewed across the sounding gulfs which divide both from Socialism, a spectator would scarcely be able to see daylight between them. Badly as we may view the opinions of our rival Free-trade and Tariff Reform opponents, at any rate the aim of both parties is to seek good to the State, not by Collectivist ideals, but by the economic advancement of the individual. Yet here is a gentleman speaking with a certain authority from the ranks of Liberalism, who has so little sense of responsibility that he can advise Taunton Liberals to vote for a man whose political creed openly advocates the abolition of the Monarchy, repudiation of the National Debt, the annihilation of private capital, the management of all industry, production, and distribution by the State, that the State should be the sole farmer, manufacturer, carrier, and storekeeper, and the community all be State slaves under the control of the Government of the day. I have epitomised the foregoing from the programme of the I.L.P., taking no notice of the directly revolutionary programme of the S.P.G.B. (Socialiet Party of Great Britain, whose Press organ is the Socialist Standard), to which Mr. Smith belongs. The above is sufficient, and more than sufficient, to show the' character of the party to which Mr. Ponsonby begged Taunton Liberals to surrender en masse. I am not one of those who desire to exaggerate the danger of Socialism; but I would ask whether its chiefest danger does not lie in the utter irresponsibility and weakness of character displayed in such aotione of Liberalism as that of Mr. Ponsonby.—I am, Sir, &a.,
R. H. G.
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