On Friday, May 15th, Lord Rosebery addressed a meeting of
his party at the Butter Market, Newton Abbott, Devonshire. His speech was bright and pleasant in manner but shifty in matter. He did not see where the agricultural labourer came in in the Rating Bill. If we possessed an inexhaustible gold-mine he would be in favour of everybody's rates being paid for them by the State, but unfortunately there was no such gold-mine in existence, and "if you do not pay your rates some one else must pay them for you, and depend upon it they will not like that operation." This some one else was, he inferred, to be the urban ratepayer—not a very fair way of putting it. It is the general taxpayers who will pay, and they include rural as well as urban ratepayers. In treating the South African problem Lord Rosebery showed little of hie great lieutenant's boldness—we presume we may still call Sir William Harcourt by that name—though he criticised the Government for not making an immediate and searching inquiry into the conduct of the Chartered Company. We agree, however, with his main contention that it is most im- portant to make it clear by inquiry that there is nothing sinister and nothing to be kept back in regard to recent events.
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