Plainly no attack from the free trade side can be fatal; for none can be more formidable than those that have been repelled. The survival of the Government really depends on Mr Chamberlain and his one hundred and twelve. If they wish to make an end, it is easy. They need not vote against the Government. A little slackness of attendance on some well-chosen occasion would be enough. But if their leader still deems it better tactics to keep the Government in office and postpone a general election, there is no reason why Ministers should not, if they choose, still hold office when the session comes to its usual close. It is not certain that they will choose. Their position cannot be enjoyable; and they may well think that, though the prospects of the party are not good, they are not likely to grow any better. It is hard to make a sound guess; but, on the whole, the tenacity with which Mr Balfour has held his post suggests that he intends, if he can, to keep off the elections for another year.

Whenever Parliament is dissolved it seems probable that the Unionists will suffer defeat. By-elections are often delusive; parliamentary forecasts are proverbially liable to error; but the signs of the times are certainly ominous. On all questions save the fiscal, Ministers still control an overwhelming majority; and a battle is not lost till it is won. Still, without a popular decision, the fiscal difficulty cannot now be eliminated; and, combined with religious bigotry and the anti-slavery cry, is only too likely to wreck the Government. Whether the turnover will be so great as to give Liberals a majority over Unionists and Irish combined is doubtful. No such turnover has, we believe, taken place since 1832. Had it not been for Mr Chamberlain's wild-goose chase, such a result would have been out of the question. But now one cannot be sure. When such a seat as Mid-Herts has been lost, it is impossible to set limits to the possibilities of Unionist rout. The point is important; for, if the Liberal Government are not independent of the Irish, they will have difficulty in dealing with the education question. A measure involving peculiar favour to Roman Catholics will not be acceptable to British opinion, and will justify the House of Lords in offering a stout resistance. But, except by conciliating Roman Catholic

Irishmen, how is the future Education Bill to be passed through the House of Commons? The dilemma is a formidable one; and the only hope of escape for the Liberals seems to lie in the chance of breaking all records and gaining a clear majority.

Nor is this the only difficulty in store for the Radicals. Their own divisions, though temporarily obliterated, are still there. It is hard to imagine Lord Rosebery acting with Mr Morley on foreign and colonial questions. Yet a Liberal ministry which should not contain both those distinguished men would lack support, of one sort or another, indispensable to its long continuance in office. The prospect would not be so terrifying to Unionists if a way out of the fiscal bog could be found for them. We cling to the hope that, when 'fiscal reform' has been emphatically rejected by the electorate, Mr Balfour will accept the verdict and will withdraw that futile ambiguity from the party programme. Mr Chamberlain might resent it, but he would have no choice save to submit ; and protection would retire to its former resting-place in the sympathetic bosom of Sir Howard Vincent. But, unless and until the fiscal question becomes again a settled issue which no one but an eccentric would dream of re-opening, it is hard to see how all those classes and interests and opinions which, after a hard struggle, defeated Mr Gladstone, can be again combined into a united and self-confident party such as has long dominated British politics. If Unionists do not drop protection at the first opportunity it will do them all the mischief that Home Rule has wrought upon their opponents. Long years of helpless opposition, short terms of impotent office, will be the penance they will have to do for having desecrated the tombs of Cobden and Peel.

The nucleus of a regenerated party is to be found in the Unionist free traders. We regret that a few of these-excusably, indeed, in the hard circumstances in which they have been placed-appear to have resolved to leave the Unionist party and join its opponents. While we do not presume to blame them, we are sorry; for, the more free traders who remain in the Unionist ranks, the more hope there is of re-establishing the old party upon the old lines. Most of the small band who have stood firm seem themselves to take this view. They

hold tight to their party, and by so holding still link it to free trade.

It may be that in the concussion of the two main bodies the free trade Unionists will be ground to powder. Tory caucuses may have too little toleration, and Radical caucuses too little magnanimity, to suffer them to remain in Parliament. But the object is worth the risk. It is no light matter that all the good causes of which the Unionist party is the guardian should be identified with the bad cause of tariff reform, and should fall under the condemnation that is its due. So long as their voices can be heard, the Unionist free traders do well to protest that free trade is not the monopoly of Radicalism, and that the working classes of this country might still enjoy all the good gifts of the demon of cheapness' without disintegrating the Empire, or confiscating property, or disestablishing the Church. It may be that, after the chastening experience of a general election, if there are any Unionist free traders left to admonish, their comrades may be more patient of admonition, and may consent to be led back into the old paths where they were wont to walk securely and harmoniously before Mr Chamberlain discovered that the Empire was dying and Mr Balfour invented fiscal reform.' But, whatever the future may have in store, irretrievable damage, for the present, has been done. If Mr Chamberlain had only deferred his 'mission' till the next Parliament! Assuredly, the 15th of May deserves a black mark in every Conservative calendar.

INDEX

TO THE

HUNDRED AND NINETY-NINTH VOLUME OF
THE QUARTERLY REVIEW.

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