LETTERS TO THE EDITOR.
THE PUDSEY ELECTION.
go TEE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR:1
SIR,—If this election does not sound the knell of the Govern- ment's ill-considered scheme of old-age pensions I shall be surprised, for it will undoubtedly encourage and justify the House of Lords in throwing it out. History has shown that the country cannot be bribed. When the bait of the abolition of the Income-tax was dangled before the country by Mr. Gladstone in 1874, the electors knew exactly what it meant, and instead of taking it, gave the Conservative Party one of the largest majorities it has ever bad at a General Election. In 1892, after free education had been given to the country by Lord Salisbury, they again refused to accept the bait, and returned the Liberals to power. Old-age pensions are not going to save the present Government. There must be many who, like myself, spoke and voted for it at the last General Election, and who will either abstain from voting or vote against it at the next one. Its only mandate, then, was to preserve Free-trade ; but it seems to have bound itself hand and foot to a noisy but small section of the Socialist Party, and is rapidly bringing about what it was elected to prevent,— namely, the readvent of Protection. As an anti-Socialist, I rejoice at the result of the Pudsey election, because if I have to choose between Socialism and "the broadening of the basis of taxation," I shall certainly choose the latter as the lesser of the two evils. Is it too late for the Government to retrace its steps, return to true Liberal legislation, and so regain the confidence of the country which it is so rapidly forfeiting ?— [Sir William Chance is, we may remind our readers, a man the strength and conviction of whose Free-trade views have never been in doubt.----En. Spectator.]
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