Mr. Gosohen made an interesting and meaty speech at Hendon,
on Wednesday, in favour of the candidature of Mr. Alfred Milner for the Harrow division of Middlesex. Mr. Goschen pressed the point that the basis of Liberal union is Mr. Glad- stone's programme, with which he, for one, heartily agrees. He thought that all Liberal candidates ought to be at liberty to bring forward on their own account proposals outside that programme ; but that it is monstrous to go beyond the four corners of that programme for tests of true Liberalism. What- ever might be brought forward beyond that programme is free matter for discussion, on which Liberals might be expected to differ mach and to differ peacefully, without excommunicating each other for the difference. He treated the question whether the Local governments of country districts should or should not receive power to acquire land for small holdings and allotments, and to sell or rent it for those purposes, as one of those outside questions on which it is quite permissible for Liberals to differ; and for himself he declared that he was heartily favourable to the extension of the allotment system (though he did not regard it as a magic cure for all possible evils), while he had the greatest doubts as to the possibility of a rapid and sudden extension of peasant properties. He believed much more in the applica- tion of the co-operative system to farming than in the sudden creation of small peasant properties in large numbers, for he did not see how the capital for such farms could be obtained
in any Short -time. He protested, in the strongest language, that he is not out of harmony with the bulk of the Liberal Party ; that he agrees more heartily with their chief than many of his Radical critics do ; and that he hopes the Liberals are not con- templating the celebration of Mr. Gladstone's retirement, whenever it may occur, by an auto tia fe of his doctrines and principles.
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