The Secretary for War, Mr. Gathorne Hardy, made speeches at
Edinburgh on Tuesday and Wednesday,—the former at a banquet given to inaugurate the Scottish Conservative Club, and the latter at a Conservative Working-men's Asso- ciation. Of the formidable, not to say menacing and alarming, language of these speeches—especially the latter—in relation to Russia, we have said enough in another column. Here we may add, that as party speeches both were respectable efforts of Mr. Hardy's, displaying that peculiar aptitude for express- ing ordinary sentiments and convictions with a wooden fervour and an extraordinary animation, which is the secret of the charm of Mr. Hardy's eloquence for the Tory party. In the former speech he quizzed Lord Hartington, " the managing director " of his party, for suffering so much interference " on the part of the ex- managing director" who " had retired with a very considerable interest in the concern," and whose " constant reappear- ance and suggestions are extremely embarrassing to the present director." He quizzed Lord Hartington also for the hesitating and hypothetical way in which he had taken up the question of Scot- tish Disestablishment. He quizzed Sir Robert Anstruther for being compelled to tolerate the Disestablishment policy with- out liking it, and compared him to one of the quadrupeds—he would not say what they were,—which he had seen taken out of a cart and fastened on behind before it went down hill, and which presented a very " melancholy spectacle" as it sub- mitted to be dragged to the bottom. In short, he quizzed the Liberals tolerably well, and resented with much effect—though probably not with the effect of inspiring complete belief,—what he called the insult contained in the insinuation that Lord Beaconsfield employed the Conservative party as the instrument —not for securing Conservative ends, but for retaining power.
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