The Colston Day at Bristol is not generally a festival
at which the speakers even profess to tame their tongues. The speech of Sir Michael Hicks-Beach on Thursday leaves much to be desired, as he very unwisely warned his opponents that if they resort to obstruction, the Conservatives can play at that game too, when their time comes. Can anything be more unwise than to threaten retaliation in kind for what we regard as a sin against Parliamentary morality P One might as well threaten a slanderer that we would slander him. If the policy of obstruction is wrong for the Gladstonians, it is equally wrong for the Conservatives, and it is no sort of excuse to plead that we have suffered by it, and can only punish it in kind. Lord Hartington was much wiser when he protested the other day that, in his belief, Liberal Unionists would never sanction such a retaliatory use of obstruction. On the same night on which Sir Michael Hicks-Beach made this foolish boast of the power of the Conservatives to repay the ill-conduct of the Gladstonians in kind, Sir George Trevelyan, addressing his constituents in the Bridgeton Division of Glasgow, declared that " if he could possibly help it by any constitutional means," he " would not allow a moribund Parlia- ment to saddle the country with 150 millions for the purchase of Irish land." So far as we know, Mr. Balfour has never proposed to saddle the country with any sum even approaching that in magnitude ; but that Sir George Trevelyan meant busi- ness, the remark which he subjoined clearly shows : " This was what he intended to do so long as he represented the con- stituency, and if they regarded this as illegitimate obstruction, they must find another Member." Very probably indeed, the Bridgeton Division will not regard that as illegitimate ob- struction ; but Sir George should remember that he cannot separate his own action from that of his colleagues, and that if he does really obstruct, it will be the worst manoeuvre ever effected by an Opposition on the eve of a General Election. The country does not believe in obstruction, even when it is personally conducted by Sir George Trevelyan.
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