LETTERS TO THE EDITOR.
A CENTRE PARTY.
[To THE EDITOR OT TH1 " SPECTATOR:I
Sin,—There seem to me to be certain practical difficulties in the way of organising and maintaining a Centre Party which have hardly perhaps received sufficient attention. Such a party is sorely needed at the present moment ; but now, as on several former occasions, the personal sacrifice which such a fusion demands, and the personal claims which it must of necessity ignore, will be found serious, if not insuperable, obstacles to the success of such a movement. If the Centre is established, what is to become of the two extremes ? Are the Tariff Reformers, with Mr. Balfour, to be relegated to seats below the gangway ? Is Mr. Balfour to serve as a private Member under the leadership of some former colleague or inveterate opponent ? Or, if the Centre takes office, is he to remain Leader of an Opposition composed of Tariff Reformers, Radicals, and Nationalists ?
In the year 1834 the political situation was not very unlike the present one. The Radicals had got the whip-hand of the Whigs, and sober-minded statesmen seriously believed that the institutions of the country were in danger. Two leading members of the Whig Cabinet saw the necessity of making a stand against what seemed an approaching revolution. With some companions-in-arms, they crossed the floor of the House and became supporters of Sir Robert Peel. The party thus reinforced may fairly be called a Centre Party, having the Whig-Radical array on one side, and the "mutinous Tories," as Macaulay calls them, who disliked Sir Robert Peel, on the other. This party, as we all know, was a great success, and achieved the object with which it was constituted. But we must remember that the men who set the example, and were the pioneers of this Centre Party, were distinguished and experienced statesmen. Sir James Graham was First Lord of the Admiralty, and was regarded by many as the strongest member of the Cabinet. Mr. Stanley had been Chief Secretary for Ireland, was now Colonial Secretary, and was marked out by his great abilities and brilliant eloquence for the post of first Minister whenever Lord Grey should retire. When two such men as these raised the standard of revolt, the effect was instantaneous. But where are two such men to be found now among the dis- contented Liberals ? Where is any one to he found of sufficient weight and authority to carry a party with him, or with sufficient courage to make the first plunge P It seems to me that the first condition of success for any such movement at the present day is the healing of the breach in the ranks of the Conservative Party. This can only be done by both sides agreeing to differ, and leaving Tariff Reform v. Free-trade an open question, as the Roman Catholic question was left down to 1829. But I fear there is little hope of so happy a consummation being reached while the two parties continue to assail each other as they do now. If the one strikes, the other will strike back. Neither can be expected to sit quietly and leave to its opponents the free use of weapons which they abjure themselves. In this respect one side is quite as much to blame as the other. The reunion of the two sections would encourage wavering Liberals to join their ranks, because they would see some prospect of coherence and permanence in a party so formed. But to form a party who would have such a powerful opposition to encounter as the Centre assuredly would have with all the Conservative Tariff Reformers against them might not seem quite so wise
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