So ended a great speech, worthy of a great man
and a great occasion. We will ask our readers to believe, and we feel sure they will believe, that we have laid so much stress on Lord Cromer's speech, not because it happens to fall in with our political views or to endorse so fully the policy of the Spectator, but because we are impressed with the extreme importance of his warning to his fellow-countrymen not to forget that Free-trade is the foundation of that Empire which
we so passionately desire to preserve,—a desire which we fully admit is shared as passionately by our Tariff Reform opponents. Is it too much to ask that. they will ponder Lord Cromer's words, and ask themselves whether be may not be right in thinking that it is our duty to let Tariff Reform sleep, and to combine our forces for preserving the Empire and the Union and for repelling the attacks of Socialism ? The times are not those when moderate men can afford to fight amongst themselves and to let the extremists invade the very stronghold of the Constitution.
