There was a meeting of Liberal Unionists at Devonshire House
on Thursday, which resulted, we think, in rather too strong a reaction against the rather too inflexible Toryism of lord Salisbury and his followers in the Lords. We suppose -extremes in one direction tend to produce extremes in the other. But while we heartily approve the general determina- tion of the Liberal Unionists not to countenance the high and mighty attitude on the Local Government Bill which Lord Salisbury had adopted, we think they should have dis- eriminated more carefully than they actually did in the debate of Thursday night, when, speaking quite generally, they sided with the Government. For example, we do not think that Lord Morley's amendment providing that the com- pulsory powers for taking land for allotments should only be exercised with the consent of Parliament, should, with the consequent amendments, have been defeated by the large majority of 47,—considerably over the highest majority which the Government can secure. The exercise of this compulsory power may lead to very serious social quarrels, and even more serious disturbances ; and the Local Government Board, which is, of course, under the rule of a single party, should hardly have been entrusted with the right to stir up such a quarrel. However, for the most part, the Liberal Unionists were cer- tainly right in throwing their influence into the scale of the Government, and not that of the high-handed Tories.
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