NEWS OF THE WEEK.
mR. BALF017R addressed a great meeting of between three and four thousand persons in the Guildhall, Ply- mouth, on Monday. We have drawn attention in another -column to that part of his speech devoted to the subject of the Irish Local Government Bill which he has undertaken to intro- duce next Session, and have commented on his rather inadequate and, as we think, half-hearted defence of the measure. Here we may add that he regarded the Irish events of the last few years as proving "that a firm and consistent administration -of the law, a determined protection of the rights of minorities, a liberal and generous, and even, if you will, a lavish recogni- tion of the needs and of the interests of our poorer fellow- -countrymen in Ireland, have produced, nay, produce,—indeed, will always produce when properly applied,—the same happy and fortunate results on which we have now to congratulate -ourselves when we look across St. George's Channel." He observed that just six years ago, Sir William Harcourt was reprobating in the same hall the utter wickedness of the Tory affiance with the Irish Nationalists, in language which it would be cruelty now to recall to Sir William's memory. He admitted the Gladstonian victories in the by-elections, but pointed out that they had been won by ignoring Home-rule, and not in consequence of an earnest advocacy of it. The Gladstonian trust in the people re- minded him, he said, of the trust in the people professed by the quack, who trusts them to swallow the universal medicine which he presses upon them. We are all very willing to gulp down a pill which any one assures us in solemn tones to be, as Mr. Bright once said, "very good against an earthquake."
