A WORKING MAN'S DIFFICULTY.
(To EDITOR 07 THE TEl " SPECTATOR.''l SIR,—I feel very much at one with your correspondent "22 10s. a Week," whose able and sensible letter is printed in your issue of the 8th inst. Like him I detest Protection and hate the Budget, and may I suggest to him that the proper course for persons such as we are is to refrain from voting at this Election? It was we Conservative Free-traders who gave the Liberals their large majority at last Election. By withholding our votes from both sides on this occasion we shall wipe out the Liberal majority without giving what would be just as great an evil,—a swollen majority to the Tariff Reformers. The best we can hope for at the present time is that neither side may have a large majority. With a small majority neither can do much harm ; and good we cannot expect from either side just now. But for the Tariff Reform aberration of the Unionists, there is no question but that they would sweep into power. If they fail of a majority, they will at least the sooner return to paths of sanity.—I am,
[Our correspondent is, we fear, too optimistic. If the Unionist Free-traders abstain, the result will probably be a Liberal, Home-rule, single-Chamber, pro-Budget victory. At any rate those who agree with him should vote, and vote Unionist, in the first elections. If later they see signs of a colossal Tariff Reform majority, they can then abstain. To abstain before they see such signs would be an act of political madness.—En. Spectator.]
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