Mr. Goschen, whose property is in Sussex, but so near
the border of Kent that he told his Kent audience on Tuesday that his Sussex dog, if he goes above fifty yards from his house, "has to suffer the indignity of a Kentish muzzle," made a lively and effective speech at Maidstone to a crowded audience at the Corn Exchange, in which he insisted on the purpose of the Government not to let Ireland "block the way," but to go on carrying useful measures for the whole Kingdom, as the present Government had already contrived to do. As to Ireland, he pointed out how emphatically Mr. Gladstone and his colleagues had insisted on the constitutional and conserva- tive influence of Mr. Parnell, and had made that assumption the basis of their policy up to the great explosion two months age, Mr. Parnell had been held up as a thorough specimen of a trustworthy statesman : "I consider Mr. Parnell and his friends," said Mr. Gladstone, "to be in the best sense a eon-. servative and restorative force." Edinburgh, in granting him the freedom of the city, described him as a man who saw with great concern the tendency of the Irish to redress their supposed grievances by violence, and who had exerted his influence effectually to. transfer all this Irish vehemence into constitutional lines of action. Mr. Childers• had spoken of it as obvious that the comparative sobriety of the Irish agitation was all due to Mr. Parnell's re- straining influence. And now we see that all this sobriety and appearance of constitutionalism was a sham, and was. thrown off at once the moment it became convenient to appeal to the deeper passions of Ireland. Mr. Goschen contended that the loss of the leader and the exposure of the sham, would and must exert a powerful influence in alienating the English supporters of Irish Home-rule from the policy they had so =- suspiciously taken up.
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