The journals this week have been loaded down with speeches.
Mr. Gladstone delivered two at Leeds on Friday se'nnight, and two. more on Saturday, and a fifth and sixth on Thursday at the Guildhall, all of the first class, as full of eloquence, argument, and fancy as if the speaker were in the middle of his career. The audience at Leeds, we are told, were spell-bound, the workmen in particular, in their meeting, resenting even accidental noise ; while in Guildhall, a much less favour- able place, the Premier evoked repeated and hearty cheers. Lord Salisbury also addressed Newcastle on Tuesday and Wednesday, in two speeches brimful if not of force, at least of -venom, about which Tories are in raptures ; while Sir Stafford Northcote, besides a short speech at Newcastle, in which he stated that he was not for a duty on corn, and never had been, and held Protection to be "a pious opinion," but not an article of faith—in other words, told his followers to support the doc- trine in the counties, but conceal it in the towns—delivered at Edinburgh a pamphlet on the past six years, which it fairly taxes human patience to read, and the most notable sentence in which is thie : "The Liberals say to us, 'What have you gentlemen to propose ?' And I say to you that is a retort to which we can listen in contemptuous silence." In other words, Sir Stafford Northcote's cue to his party is, "We have nothing to say, there- fore say it boldly, and look savage."
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