NEWS OF THE WEEK.
MR. GLADSTONE made two short railway-station speeches on Tuesday,—one at Weybridge in the morn- ing, in answer to an address from the Weybridge, Chertsey, and Egham Liberal Associations ; and one at Tring in the evening, in answer to an address from the Liberals of the West Herta Parliamentary Division. The first speech had nothing in it but the remark that the Home-rulers are the true Unionists, and that the Liberal Unionists would better describe themselves as in effect Dieunionists,—a remark which is certainly not new, and to us appears emphatically untrue, though we hope that its error will never be demonstrated to the world at large by any practical 'experience of the nature of Mr. Gladstone's true Union. At Tring, Mr. Gladstone, who was on his -way to stay with Mr. Cyril Flower at Aston Clinton, took -up rather more specific ground. He attacked Mr. Balfour's Irish Land Bill, saying, not very elegantly, "It is not in a very healthy but in a somewhat fishy condition ;" and he then went on, in a passage which we have given at length in another column, to suggest that, as the Parnellites are all going to oppose it, the security Which the Bill might profess to give for the purchase-money to be advanced by the British Government would be utterly worthless, since the- debtor would say to the creditor : Yes, you insisted on pay- ing the money, but then we never asked for it, and therefore you cannot ask us to pay it back.' That is a suggestion to the Irish Party to repudiate every obliga- tion to which Ireland has been committed, without her own -free will, since the Union. There was a time when Mr. Glad- stone would have characterised such a hint,—no doubt with an excess of vivacity and vigour,—as nefarious and infamous -at the very least. For ourselves, we do not call this hint to Irishmen to repitdiate obligations they have not separately approved, either nefarious or infamous. But we must insist -that it is highly dislocating to the power and influence of the United Kingdom. Mr. Gladstone would fire the prairie rather than let his enemies under Mr. Balfour's leadership come off victorious.
