LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Opposition Tactics
Sin,--Scldom have I read so inexact and ill-informed an appreciation as that which emerges from the following statement on the first page of your issue for March 23rd: " It is safe to say that the country as a whole views them [recent Conservative methods in the House] with complete disgust." If that is intended to be a statement of fact, then I can only say that it does not coincide with my experience—and I get around. If it also embraces sympathetic comment, then it illustrates that the best of us is not immune from one Socialist weapon, the " inevitability of gradualness."
What I admit is prevalent in the country is doubt. Socialists, with a great parade of injured innocence, and Liberals, for whom any stick is good enough, have tried hard to excite "disgust," and have succeeded in raising doubts. They exploit Mr. Boothby's candid disclosure of a perfectly legitimate tactic of Opposition, but such success as they have had is mainly due to the ignorance, which it seems you share, of the average elector about the methods of legislation, and about parliamentary procedure.
The average elector has no conception of the spate of Ministerial decrees, each of which affects somebody and some of which affect every- body, which pours out from Whitehall. He does not know that the only means whereby his representatives in Parliament can even discuss one of these orders—that is to say, can fulfil their primary duty, for these orders become part of the law of the land—is for some Member to table a Prayer to annul it. He does not know that, once laid before the House, these orders cannot be amended, but only approved or annulled ; so that, whereas discussion is always desirable, division is not. He does not know that these Prayers can only be heard after the normal business of the day, which means, generally, far into the night. Lastly, unless he follows Hansard (for the Press has often gone to bed), he cannot know the issues, none of them unimportant, which are raised in the debates on these Prayers.
Many times in our history has an overweening executive sought to encroach upon the liberties of the subject. The Tory Party, true to its tradition, does not intend that a Socialist executive shall succeed, even in the name of convenience, where so many would-be destroyers of freedom have failed. If Tory members are prepared to work an 18-hour day in what they genuinely conceive to be the public interest, it would be'somewhat ungenerous of the public to cavil. "The price of liberty is eternal vigilance " ; and if I may say so with respect, Sir, I think that last week you were caught napping.—Yours sincerely,
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