LETTERS TO THE EDITOR.
THE CONSERVATIVE MANIFESTO AND HOME- RULE.
IT° T/11¢ EDITOR OF Tlls SPRCTATOR.1 Silt,—The manifesto of the Conservative Central Office has been published, followed by that of its "annexe," the Tariff Reform Unionist Association, and Liberal Unionists now know where they are and what is the position of the Unionist alliance at the present time. As I was chairman of the Council of the Liberal Unionist Associations for seven years under the presidency of the late Duke of Devonshire, I will ask your permission to comment upon this remarkable change of policy, and to enter my protest, as a Unionist, against this ungenerous and suicidal action on the part of the Central Conservative Office.
The Unionist alliance of 1886 was based on the necessity of combination to defeat Mr. Gladstone's Home-rule policy, and on that only, and had nothing to do at any time with any fiscal question. And yet we are now told in the manifesto that it would be better to wait some years for a Unionist majority than to have any Free-trade or non-Tariff Reform Members in the Unionist ranks after the next Election. In 1906 Liberal Unionists were divided, and with Home-rule declared out of the way during the present Parliament, the majority showed in an unmistakable manner their want of confidence in Mr. Balfour and his Government when deprived of the presence of all its great Conservative and Liberal statesmen; and now when the Unionist leaders are crying out for an appeal to the country, the Central Conservative Office hauls down the Unionist flag, hoists at the masthead the old rag of Protection as the one really vital question on which the next General Election is to be fought, and requires all Unionist candidates to bear the trade- mark of Tariff Reform. The questions of Home-rule, a Second Chamber, the settlement of religious education, our national insurance and serious financial position, are all matters of secondary importance compared with Tariff Reform in the eyes of the Conservative managers, and all Liberal Unionists who will not fall down and worship their golden calf are to be hounded out of the reconstituted Unionist Party (as it is sometimes falsely alleged Liberal Unionists were by Mr. Gladstone in 1886 out of the Liberal Party) because Tariff Reform is the political craze of the moment.
But these Conservative party politicians appear to have altogether omitted to consider one or two points of first importance —(1) Mr. Gladstone did not hound the Liberal Unionists out of the Liberal Party when he proclaimed his Home-rule policy and divided the Liberal Party in Parliament and in the country. Liberal Unionists first defeated his Home-rule Bill after fair and honest warning, and then in a solid phalanx, under their trusted leaders and the Union flag, offered their alliance to the Conservatives to win the Election of 1886, left them the spoils of office for six years, and formed Liberal Unionist Associations throughout the country whilst maintaining a loyal but independent alliance. And, again, they rallied to the support of their leaders in 1895 after the House of Lords had, as it generally does, acted in accordance with the public opinion of the country and rejected the second Horne-rule Bill.
(2) In 1886 Mr. Gladstone and his colleagues had a well- defined and carefully considered policy of Home-rule; but Mr. Balfour has never had a definite policy or adopted in any speech or mentioned "Tariff Reform" as embodying his Fiscal policy, and no single Conservative statesman of first rank has joined the Tariff Reform League, whose policy was rejected by the constituencies at the last Election in 1906.
(3) The Government have openly declared that the question of the Second Chamber is to be the predominant plank in their next Election manifesto, and the Irish Party have stated that Home-ride must and will be adopted by the present Radical Party, and that will necessarily be the most vital question to all real Unionists.
Now in order to obtain a majority to oppose Home-rule, the Liberal Unionists, who either abstained from voting or voted for Radical candidates in 1906, must be won back by the Unionist Party ; but if they are, then their votes will be counted in favour of Tariff Reform, as they are now at by-elections. But the policy of Tariff Reform will not win
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