The Cotton Factory Times. — 1900-09-28 (Manchester, Greater Manchester, England)

MILLBROOK.  GENTLRIIEW-7  I have felt it my imperative duty to secopithe invitation so pressingly accorded to me to conic, forward as the candidate of the Liberal party in the election which a Tcry Government has thus prematurely sprung upon the constitmencies, from no worthier motive, apparently, than the desire to snatch a dubious party gain, and with the notorious result of the scandalous exclusion Tram the franchise of many thousands of fatly qualified electors. We may well helieve that a step, as unjustifiable as it is unprecedented, would ha., dly have been taken but for the hope that the glamour of victory, however dearly bought, might suffice to blind the eyes of the nation to the long array of :ailures and shortcomings with which, in the fields alike of foreign policy and house legislation., the path of the Government is so plentifully strewn. But that hope may et be destined to disappointment. Whatever our ....„  differences of opinion anon the cantles of the deplorable South African war—and there are reasonable grounds enough for questioning its necessity—rife shall be at one to-day in the conviction, upon the evidence already before us, that it in to the ilanntlees valour and endurance of our gallant forces, Ilritish and Colonial, that we aro alone indebted for that success of oar arms which the signal lack of forethought, of preparation, and of administrative capacity on the part of the Government had rendered it impossible to assure, save at an excessive and most lamentable expense of life and treasure. liqualiy discreditable to the foreign policy of the Government must be accounted, in the first plaoe, the shameful abandoirment to the murderous grip of the 'Turk of those Armenian Christiatis. whom by every precept of humanity, as well as by two-fold treaty obligation, we were RO deeply bound to take uo/er our protection; and next the humiliating surrender in China, and the tar East, of that commanding influence and position to which the ire-eminence of our commerce =IA be regarded as so justly entitling this country. If loss of national honour and prestige has thus been sustaieed abroad, there has been but little compensating gain at home through legislation calculated to promote the general well-being and progress of the commnunity at large. The promise of Old• Age Pensions, so skilfully and successfully dangled before the eyes of She deluded electors of 1895, remains to-day unreearded end unredeemed. The unanimous recommendations of the Licensing Cola',Weskit] of Lord Salisbury's appointing have been treated by him and his colleagues in the Ministry with contemptuous indifference. Whilst the two most important measures of the past session, professedly designed to redress the grievances of the tenant farmer, and to remedy the crying evil of the overcrowding of our great cities, could hardly be better summarised than in the motto "how not to do it" writ large upon their respective title pages. There is but one field of legislation in which ministers have distinguished themselves by any remarkable degree of activity, and that is the one in which they have la-bodged, only too suceessfully, to extract, by means of such devices as the Rating Act, involuntary, contributions from the pockets of the general body of ta...yers in aid of those priviheed classes and pet interests, upon whose support the maintenance in power and place of a Tory Government meat so largely depend. To such a Government, combining a policy of dant favouritism at home with one of alternate aggression and surrender abroad, we can have nothing to offer but a roost strenuous opposition. Ouly through its defeat and displacement by a genuinely liberal Administration can we hope to clear the way for the re-instatement of that truly National and Imperial policy of which the aim shall be to bring back our beloved country at home to the nid and safe paths of peace, retrenchment, and reform, and to restore her abroad to her rightful and commanding position as the high and honoured example of just and righteous dealing in theeyes of all nations. I can conceive of no worthier ambition than to he privileged two your representative in Parliament, with the opportunity of devoting such powers as I possess to the furtherance of so lefty an end. Nat is ihere anything of which I can feel more confident than that in no doing I should be rendering the highest and truest service to the community of which lam an attached member, and whose best interests in every relation of our common life I can claim to have very closely at heart. I have the honour to remain, gentlemen, very Eastwood, Stalybridge, September 20th, 1900.  Your very fatthfui serin;nt, J. FILEDriRWK