Mr. Balfour has made several interesting speeches since our last
issue ; one last Saturday at Birkenhead, one on Tuesday at Glasgow, and one on Wednesday at Dalkeith. He is making a formal political tour in Scotland, where a Scot of distinction is listened to more eagerly than an Englishman,. even if he were the Englishman's equal in position and in iluence. Mr. Balfour's drift was always the same; nor was he at all less confident of success when he spoke at Birkenhead before- & single constituency had been contested, than he was after the- three first days of the poll disclosed that his anticipations would be more than justified. He steadily maintains that it is not necessary to assail any of the great institutions that have grown with our national growth and strengthened with our strength; that Home-rule would endanger our life as a nation ; that the national Church should be protected ; that the House of Lords is the guardian of popular liberties, not their foe.. But he does not seem to insist that the House of Lords should remain exactly what it is. He declared in one of his speeches that he cared for the House of Lords only as the guardian of the people's liberties against a possibly domineering House of Commons ; but in our opinion, he has never adequately realised that when a Liberal Government is in power, we- ought not to have a House of Lords that will look at all that Government's measures with more jealousy than they show towards the measures of a Conservative House of Com- mons. It ought to be an assembly that disapproves either revolution or reaction, whether either Liberals or Unionists- originate the revolution or reaction. And that, at present, it certainly is not.
Previous page
