[TO THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR:1
SIR,—The doom which might have been foreseen when in 1903 Mr. Chamberlain stood up in the House of Commons to advocate a tax upon food has fallen upon the Unionist Party. It is broken as well as beaten. Is it possible to find a way to heal its divisions ? It is clear that as a party it should adopt no pro-gramme whatever—such as Mr. Chamberlain is reported to propose—dealing with so-called Fiscal Reform. During this Parliament any question of taxing food or manufactured articles is out of the range of practical politics. The proposal is as good as dead. Any attempt to revive it by a Resolution or a Bill would be to court disastrous defeat and to make the Protectionists ridiculous. They must feel this themselves. As individuals they can with perfect propriety express their ideas in the debates upon the Budget and upon other like occasions; and as individuals they can tour round the country during the Recess, following their leader in the (I think) hopeless task of endeavouring to convert the constituencies. But with all this the Unionist Party, as a party, would have nothing to do. They would be occupied in giving a united consideration to the Education Bill, to Disesta.blislimcnt in Wales, to Army reform, to the demands of the Labour Members, and while acting as a united party would gain a weight and consideration in the country out of all proportion to their diminished numbers. I write in ignorance of what Mr. Balfour may say or do during this week ; but I see no reason why he should not continue the leader of the party if he will say, what he must know to be the fact, that taxation of food is as a dead thing; and further, that he will have nothing to do with any attempt to galvanise it into a mockery of life while the nation holds to its present firm, unhesitating belief. Retaliation may drop also into limbo, and no one will greatly lament. I write as a Unionist Free-trader.—I am,
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