POLITICAL DEMORALISATION.
[TO TEE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR:]
have been a Liberal all my life, and hope to die one. But I am not a Home-ruler, any more than I am a Liberal Unionist, masquerading in the garb of a Tory. I am, in fact, nothing politically, and I dare venture to say that this is the condition of 'some hundreds of thousands of the electors at the present moment—they cannot vote for the Liberals, so- called, and they will not vote for the Tories. When I reflect that I was an active Liberal worker thirty years ago, and that I shall not even record my vote in the forthcoming Election, I get some measure of the demoralisation which has fallen upon me, although I have no clear conception as to the cause, and no idea whatever as to the remedy for my deplorable condition. But I am clear about this : that I shall never recover until some one arises who has the political instinct, the self-sacrifice, and, above all, the devotion of Mr. Gladstone, and who will let the accursed nightmare of Home. rule rest for a while—a long while—as the great chief himself would probably have done, when he saw that it was hopeless, and worse than hopeless. We have no time for such vagaries when the interests of the once "great Liberal party" are being trifled with by a parcel of fanatics, who would let Liberal principles go by the board so long as their own
miserable fads are carried out. —I am, Sir, &c., J.
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