LETTERS- TO THE EDITOR.
THE FUTURE OF THE UNIONIST PARTY.
[TO TIM EDITOR OF TUE "SPECTILTOR:1 SIE,—.118 one of those Liberals who have insisted from the outset of Mr. Chamberlain's mad enterprise that the issue should be treated as a national even more than a party issue, I wish to express the warmest appreciation of the great service you have rendered to the national life in these past two years in helping to save the country, and of the great service you are now seeking to render in saving the best elements of Con- servatism from being finally committed to a course which must bring the Conservative Party to absolute ruin and extinction.
From a prolonged experience of many constituencies, I am con- vinced that, in spite of many vital issues which acutely separate even Free-trade Conservatives from Liberals, tens of thousands of voters who have usually given Conservative votes have this time transferred them to Liberals on national and patriotic grounds. Tens of thousands have also abstained from voting. And what is more, no Conservative will deny that tens upon tens of thousands have recorded Conservative votes in this Election, while hostile to Mr. Chamberlain's schemes, from party ties.
When these facts are considered, it is clear that your appeal to common-sense and to true Conservatism is neither unreasonable her hopeless. It is only a matter of a few strong, wise, and
patriotic men standing firm and speaking .out, resolving that this plague which has decimated and pat'ralysed a great party shall be stayed. Round them other good and temperate and cool- headed business men will rally, and the resuscitation of a great party, necessary to the true balance of national life, will be slowly, but in time effectually, accomplished.
Why not? In the first place, the social legislation to which the new Ministry is pledged consists largely of proposals which Conservatives have claimed to share in quite as much as Liberals. The questions of housing, of small holdings, of the unemployed, of old-age pensions, of local taxation, and reasonable financial retrenchments are surely common ground for wise, conciliatory, and patriotic work, though we, as Liberals, would expect alterna- tive suggestions and criticisms from our opponents. No Con- servative denies the necessity of constructive work in many of these directions. No Conservative can seriously in his heart doubt that there is a better chance of rehabilitation in a sound, • wise, critical attitude, of helping what is good, and suggesting changes in what is„ from his point of view, bad, than in stubbornly and blindly pitting the remaining strength of the party against the visible determination of the popular will.
What is the vital feature of this Election? Obviously that the threat of Protection, the organised tyranny of plutocratic Trusts, has roused tho most democratic elements in English life, as never before, to send Labour representatives to Parliament to end this danger once for all. No straightforward, clear-sighted man who has gone through this Election doubts that this was the real bottom motive of the vast majority of the working men, whom Mr. Chamberlain has spurred and goaded into an exact thinking out of the economic conditions under which they live. This is a force it is madness to exasperate by refusing to face visible facts and concrete verdicts.
I wish you success in your effort. I write in no party sense. To commit the wrecked Unionist Party to Protection irretrievably would ensure Liberal and Labour control of politics for a genera- tion. But all who have patiently and accurately studied the history of the evolution of British parties must feel a supreme duty to stand up for the truth, irrespective of immediate party interest. It is a national danger to have either party committed to a policy which means ruin to national life. However it works out, the results cannot be so good as a rational balance of sound standpoints, which have at least as common ground certain agreed postulates which are vital to national existence.
0 xforcl and Cambridge Club, Pall Mall, S. W.
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