Lord Salisbury has been making speeches at Scarborough for some
days, in which some valuable hints may be found. He pointed out, for instance, that it would pay Scarborough much better to endure increased Naval Estimates than to be looted by an enemy's squadron. In another speech, besides explaining his Soudanese policy, he declared himself strongly in favour of creating small proprietors in land, and asserted his belief that if the second advance under Lord Ashbourne's Act proved as successful as the first, the natural forces of society would reassert themselves, and the process would be repeated again and again, until the Act became the system by which owners and occupiers would adjust their rights. That is an extremely grave statement, which must, however, be read by Unionists side by side with Mr. Goschen's recent explanation that the Ashbourne Act did not comprise the whole plan of the Government for facilitating the creation of Irish freeholds. He furthermore stated that the Crimes Act was no "accidental feature" in the policy of the Govern- ment, but that the Ministry held the fulfilment of contracts and the maintenance of law to be the very basis of restored prosperity in Ireland. Again, in his last speech, Lord Salisbury stated that we owed Scotland a Local Govern- ment Bill, and England an Agricultural Department, a Tithe Bill, and an Employers' Liability Bill, and Ireland a non-com- pulsory Land Bill, so big that it will bring freeholds within the reach of a far larger class of occupiers. Every sentence of the speeches is, in fact, full of suggestions, either of the ideas or the proposals of the Government, if only that wretched House of Commons could be induced to do anything.
