NEWS OF THE WEEK M R. BALF017R, in a speech on
Wednesday addressed to the Conservative Association of Battersea, delivered a most crushing reply to Mr. Gladstone's address to the Noncon- formists, on which we commented last week. He pointed out that Mr. Gladstone, though he "remembers Mitchelstown " so vividly, does not remember what happened there even as the most Nationalist authorities themselves described it, and quoted a striking passage from the Freeman's Journal's own account of the matter, to show that when the constabulary fired, they were defending themselves and the life of one of their com- rades against a most violent and riotous mob,—which is precisely what Mr. Gladstone denied. Mr. Balfour quoted Colonel Turner to prove the utter baselessness of Mr. Glad- stone's account of the recent occurrence at Ennis, when, according to Mr. Gladstone, cavalry were ordered by their officer into a yard to put down a perfectly peaceful though illegal meeting, and when, according to Colonel Turner, only a single soldier entered the yard, and that against orders, one of his officers at once following him to bring him back ; while the mob, instead of being peaceful, were raining a perfect shower of stones on the soldiers from the upper windows of the building which skirted the yard.
