The Opposition criticisms on the Address on Tuesday night were
unexpectedly moderate. In the Lords, after a speech by the new Lord D udley of it power and range quite unexpected from so young a man, and affording hope that a fresh and strong debater has appeared, and another from his seconder, Lord Lamington, Lord Kimberley delivered a general and cautious criticism. There was very little in it. He postponed remarks on the Egyptian Question, as inexpedient when a young Khedive had just mounted the throne—a course imitated by Sir William Harcourt—and confined himself, after a tribute to the Duke of Clarence, to a demand that Local Government in Ireland should be a reality, and not a "sham," that is, should not be fenced round with "guarantees," and to a promise to consider the Small Holdings Bill for Great Britain. He did not, how- ever, quite understand what that Bill was for, unless it was to catch agricultural votes. Lord Salisbury, in reply, trusted that no foreign Power would believe that England intended to abandon the task she had undertaken in Egypt, or would entrust that country to any other Power; and showed that he had always defended the principle of small holdings. He did not believe much could be done in that direction, but the Government would do what it could. He believed firmly that it would succeed in its Irish policy. The Duke of Devon- shire, speaking for the first time in the Lords, intimated his own concurrence, and that of all Unionists, in sympathy for
the loss sustained by the Royal family, and the sitting ter- minated.
