There is but little else of interest in the measures foreshadowed; and this fact confirms the Liberals in their conviction that the General Election will come long before the Session has reached its normal close, and that even while Parliament is sitting the predominance of the fiscal question will leave little time or inclination for legislative work. Still, since the members of the Government persist in declaring that there is no reason why this Parliament should not live out its natural life, it may prove difficult for the Opposition' to force a dissolution. The great majority of the Free Food Unionists are resolved to support Mr. Balfour so long as he pledges himself to nothing more than a vague scheme of retaliation against the Protectionist foreigner ud even if the Opposition succeed in "cornering" the Prince Minister, driving him into such a position that the Unionist Free Traders are compelled to abandon birny, it is still doubtful how the Irish vote will go. The Nationalists openly declare that they care nothing for Free Trade or Protection, and that they intend to support the Party which will promise them most. The Liberals dare not promise Home Rule, or they will lose the support of the Unionist Free Fooders and there is probably a good deal of truth in a view expressed by the Irish Times" the other day that the Irish farmer would prefer Protection even to Home Rule. The By-Elections.
A great deal will, however, depend upon the pending by-elections, all of which will have been fought and won before this letter reaches you. Immense interest is taken in London in the contests in the neighbouring constituency of Dulwich and Lewisham, both of which are to poll next Tuesday. "The Conservatives frankly confess that they scarcely hope to repeat the huge majorities polled by Sir John Blundell Maple and Mr. Penn; and the Liberals, while professing that a substantial reduction of the majorities will be victory enough, are really hopeful of winning at least one of the two seats. Dulwich has a strong Unionist candidate in Dr. Rutherford Harris, though the " Daily News" does its best to stir up feeling against him on the ground of his complicity in the Jameson Raid but Major Coates, who is standing in the Conservative interest for Lewisham, is something of an amateur as a politic ian, and is having a very warm time of it. Both of them, too, are very much hampered by the difficulty of pleasing the two sections of the fiscal reformers—those who are prepared to go only as faras Mr. Balfour goes, and the "whole-hoggers," as Major Coates calls them—those who would go all the way with Mr. Chamberlain. Both Dr. Harris and Major Coates are professed Chamberlainites, but the temptation to "hedge" on the subject of the bread tax seems too strong for them. Practically, however, I do not think it can be denied for a moment that Mr. Chamberlain's proposals and not Mr. Balfour's form the issue on which all these contests will be fought.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.