Lord Cranbrook made a great party speech at the Crystal
Palace on Wednesday, to the West Kent Conservative Associa- tion, in which he exulted that, at all events, that division of Kent, —West Kent,—had never been " polluted " by the representa- tion of a Liberal ; repeated his old and quite unfounded assertion that it was the default of the Government of 1873 which forced on the quarrel between Great Britain and. Afghanistan, though there was no such quarrel till Lord Salisbury and Lord Lytton made it ; boasted of the support given by the Government to Turkey ; declared that it sickened and enraged him to see the finger of scorn pointed at tho House of Commons through the misconduct of a few un- ruly Members ; and taunted Lord. Hartington with 'being governed by his Radical tail. The speech was not a bad speech, Lord Cranbrook did not even pretend that he was addressing it to his own conscience, as he did at Sheffield in June, but confessed in limine that he regarded a Liberal Member as a pollution to any county consti- tuency,—which was frank and manly. And no doubt it answered the purpose this sort of speech should answer. It made Conservative agents prouder of their work, Con- servative squires a little less gloomy, Conservative Volnu- teers in general more confident that Conservatism is at the heart of the British oak. But it does make one doubt a little -whether the same kind of work might not be done even better by machinery. If scientific men can ever make a phonograph that will admit of a little modification of words and dates, without altering the voice and manner, Lord Cranbrook's speeches, repeated by such phonographs, might be made to do all the electioneering work of his party. The roar of the British Bull is never more effective,—for electioneering purposes,—than when it is bellowed forth from the bosom of Lord Cranbrook.
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