Sir G. Trevelyan made a speech to the East Finsbury
Liberal and Radical Association in the Clerkenwell Road on Wednes- day, in which he, sharply attacked the Irish Tories for voting for Mr. Parnell's candidate in North Sligo, only for the pur- pose of increasing the split in the Nationalist Party, and in spite of the denunciations which they had freely lavished on Mr. Parnell up to the moment when that split occurred. We quite agree with Sir George that the policy is a crooked and indefensible one. It is a policy founded on the principle, Divide et impera, a policy which we have always thought as bad as any other which has no further object than to cover with adventitious discredit a cause that one cannot ap- prove. But he went on to defend the Irish priests for adopting the side of the Anti-Parnellites, which they have of course a perfect right to do, and totally ignored the assertion of that ecclesiastical right to dictate to the Irish people by which the Roman Catholic Primate of Ireland has accompanied his advocacy of the Anti-Parnellite cause, and by which he has undoubtedly greatly injured the political value of his advocacy. Does Sir George Trevelyan really approve of that P Of course he is silent upon it, and will express no opinion. He will take gratefully any help that it brings to the Gladatonian cause, and carefully avoid looking the ecclesiastical gift-horse in the mouth.
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