On the other hand, the Unionists, said Mr. Balfour, rely -
almost too much perhaps, on what they have actually achieved. If, however, social reform be the great subject of the present time, the Conservatives have a right to claim that. they have been the pioneers of prudent social legislation, and. that especially, considering how much smaller a number of years they have held office since the Reform Act of 1832 than the official years of the opposite party, they have done far more than their antagonists for the softening and improving of the social relations of the people. More particularly in Ire- land, they have done infinitely more for the development of Irish energy and hope, as well as for the enforcing of order and the protection of liberty, than a thousand Parliaments established on the other side of St. George's Channel could effect. Mr. Balfour claimed for the Unionists that they are the hope of the future,—of the social future,—as well as the most fruitful of the social labourers of the past. He did not, how- ever, think it necessary to state, what is nevertheless true, that- the Conservatives really owe their hopeful and liberal attitude at the present moment to those constitutional Reform Acts to- which he unjustly referred as "barren." But for them, the- alliance with the Liberal Unionists would have been" barren,' if not even impossible.
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