Lord Hothfield, one of Mr. Gladstone's Peers, who for fifteen
years was the head of the Gladstonian party in West- moreland, has announced openly his secession from that party. In a letter to Sir Theodore Fry, he states that he cannot support Mr. T. W. Fry's candidature for the county. He remained passive during Mr. Gladstone's Ministry, but he has no personal obligation to his successor ; and "the most iniquitous—not to use a stronger word—Budget of the- Ministerialists, coupled with their mode of carrying on the business of the country in the last Session, compels me to do- all I can to relegate them to the obscurity which befits them best." We think, if it were possible to bear Mr. Gladstone's Home-rule Bill, it was possible to bear Sir William Harcourt's• Budget, and regret to be obliged to welcome on such grounds• Lord Hothfield's support. He is doubtless sincere, and we hold' no man obliged to cling to his party against his own convictions, but we think it most unlucky for the country that so few men in Lord Hothfield's position should be able to remain Liberals. The Home•rule question must divide men absolutely, because- it involves the disintegration of the Kingdom, but no fiscal, question is of that importance, and we had rather see any change than a horizontal cleavage of English parties. If all men who have anything are to be on one side, and all who have nothing on the other, we shall have, first, a series of mad' experiments, and then a recoil which will be fatal to the• confiscating parties,—and to liberty.
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