| Description | Ridgeway comments on the 'desperate state' of their party, citing an anonymous letter he wrote to 'The Times' on the subject. He thinks that unless [Andrew] Bonar Law is replaced, they will not have the chance of making a good showing if the Government calls an election when 'the Lords throw out Home Rule and the Welsh Church'. He discusses the possible return of [Arthur] Balfour who is known not to have liked tariff reform, and the positions of Unionists, Nationalists, and Radicals in Ireland. The real point is that the North in general will not have tariff reform, either for food or manufactured materials which they need for their trades. Bonar Law and Chamberlain settled Unionist chances by making speeches threatening to keep out Swedish steel and Norwegian granite, both of which were needed. On food, he thinks that 'Any politician who does not realise that the Belly is the arbiter of the vote of the democracy is not fit to steer a canal boat, much less a great party'. |