18 NOVEMBER 1871, Page 1

Mr. Winterbothatn's speech was very honorific to the Ministry which

he has joined. "lie thought the praise due to the present Ministry might be spoken not unfitly by him, be- cause whatever praise it deserved, he had no share in it from having joined it so recently, and even the most bilious critics had not made him share with his honoured chief, Mr. Bruce, the responsibility attached to the Home Office for all the poverty, and vice, and crime which existed in the universe." The greatest service the Ministry had rendered to the country did not consist in the measures they had passed. "It was not simply those great measures of justice to Ireland in which his right hon. friend, Mr. Fortescue, had had so honourable a part, and for which he had only received half the credit it was not even—and that had not been alluded to that night—that by our policy abroad we had confirmed and re-established not only peace, but friendly relations with every country on the globe." No, it was "because of the spirit Mr. Gladstone had brought to bear upon public life and public affairs, and the spirit in which lie had undertaken those great measures, and in which Parliament had carried them. He fancied—and he could not help saying it— that Mr. Gladstone seemed to have lifted up everything that he touched above the sphere of everything that was base and dirty." Amicus Bruce, magis amicus Fortescuo, maxima amieus Gladstone. Not such a bad creed for a young minister, either prudentially or morally, but would it not have been better taste to say less ?