Mr. Howorth, whose letters we almost always read with. pleasure,
writes to the Times of Monday a long and, as it seems to us, very unjust attack on the Government, in which he finds fault with everything, including even the- courtesy with which they treat their opponents,—surely not a legitimate subject for complaint in a time when the bitterness of party spirit is getting so virulent. He is angry with them for their imposition last year of an extra tax on alcoholic drinks (which did not, however, check consumption), and for not repealing it this year ; he is very angry with the policy of Free Education; and he seems generally disposed to find more fault with. the Government than with the Opposition. He shows precisely the fastidioua and ultra-critical spirit by which elections arc lost, and if the General Election goes against the Unionists, we shall have to impute a good deal of the blame to the hypersensitiveness of Conservatives who will not be contented with the most truly Conservative and yet most truly progressive Govern- ment which has been in power for the last twenty years. Mr. Howorth concludes by saying that he is ill, which perhaps explains his extremely sore and unfriendly tone. But it is just by attacks of this kind, initiated from amongst the sup- porters of Governments, that the power of even the best Governments which have ever ruled England has been generally undermined.
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