How much too sanguine Mr. Chamberlain's view of the political
sagacity of " men of sense" on the Gladstonian side is, was proved by Ur, Campbell-Bannerman's speech at Culross (one of the Stirling District of Burghs for which he sits) on Thursday. Mr, Campbell.Bannerman was Mr. Gladstone's Irish Secretary after Sir George Trevelyan's resignation in p84, and has always been regarded as one of the shrewdest and coolest of the Home-rulers. Yet Mr. Campbell-Bannerman said :—" Recent events might have caused some of his hearers. to change their views, but he might state that they had brought about no change in the views he held. He was perfectly convinced that the only way of securing a good system of government in Ireland would be to allow the Irish people to have the management of their own affairs, through their own representatives, subject always to the full maintenance of the Imperial authority over every part of the Empire. It did not affect the policy that they advocated, that they had found that some particular man, however prominent he might have been, had failed in his duty either to the public or to himself, or to the moral law which ought to govern all their actions." If the great object-lesson in Ireland does not con- vince Mr. Campbell-Bannerman of his mistake, we fear it will convince only the feebler members of the party. Nothing is more remarkable than the inability of men of strength of pur- pose to unlearn what yet, but for the unfortunate pressure of circumstances, they would have had quite sagacity enough to refuse to learn.
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