Mr. Gladstone having absented himself, probably for the reason we
have suggested above, from the Mansion House dinner, made a little speech to the Honourable Society of the Middle Temple on Thursday, in which he descanted on the formidable character of Legal Opposition to the legal reforms of a Government, and contrasted the permanence of the Judges as institutions of the country with the " fugitive and transitory character" of party administrations. Ile also dwelt on the infinite blessing which the principle of International arbitration, if at all generally adopted, might bring to the world ; but could he have read his own Secretary of the Treasury's speech at Shaftesbury before speak- ing, we hope he might have said something to diminish the very bad moral effect of that foolish speech. Mr. George Glyn, at Shaftesbury, when he heard hisses after his mention of the
Geneva Arbitration, asked rhetorically, "Did people mean to say that it was not well worth the payment of three millions to avoid a bloody war with the United States?" Mr. Glyn would seem th approve of the ancient British principle of buying off the Saxons and Danes when they threatened invasion,—which, however, as we may venture to remind him, was not eventually very efficient for the purpose. A Liberal Whip ought to have more tact, even if he has not more patriotism, than to put the matter in that mean and unworthy way.
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