Sir George Trevelyan made two speeches at Newbury on Wednesday,
in one of which he complained bitterly, as he is too apt to do, of the attacks made upon him. "For the last eighteen months he had had a great storm of angry criticism directed against him; and under what circumstances did it begin ? He wrote a letter to the Aberdeen newspapers telling the Liberal Unionists that, in his opinion, the Irish Question would never be settled until the Liberal Party was united honourably to all concerned. That was the unpardonable, the inexpiable crime for which he had never been forgiven by the men who regarded the reunion of the Liberal Party as the greatest of all evils." In other words, when Sir George Trevelyan suddenly changed his colours, he was very naturally upbraided for doing so. Sir George Trevelyan, like many other very sensitive men, seems to think all the invective that comes out of his own month harmless and candid criticism, and all the invective directed against him malign and unjust aspersion. But, impartially weighed, we should think his attacks on the Conservatives and Liberal Unionists at least as severe as their attacks upon him. If sensitive men would only try to be as sensitive on behalf of others in relation to the effect of what they say themselves, as they are on their own behalf in relation to the effect of what others say of them, and to be as indifferent on their own behalf in relation to what others say of them, as they are indifferent on behalf of others to the effect of what they themselves say, they would both teach and learn an admirable lesson in political charity which Sir George Trevelyan as yet has neither learned nor taught.
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