Sir William Harcourt, at Stratford on Tuesday, devoted himself in
great measure to chaffing Mr. W. H. Smith, and the Times for suggesting that the public orators of the day should all take as their models the discourses of Mr. W. H. Smith. He professed to be himself anxious to do so, and hoped that when he sat down, his hearers would remark that there was nothing in what he had been saying, for in that case he should have been successful. But that is certainly not the effect upon 118 of Sir William Harcourt's speeches. He always appears to us to have been saying something as different as possible from the fact,—as when, for instance, he said on Tuesday that the Allotments Act of the Government had been a total failure. If Sir William Harcourt could only manage to make a speech which had nothing in it, he would deserve congratula- tion for having suppressed so much that is mischievous. His speeches are usually almost all error, flavoured and made palatable by a modicum of effervescent humour or high spirits. But so misleading an orator has no right to high spirits. There is something almost shocking in the light-heartedness which popularises so much mischief.
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