Mr. Chamberlain made one of his very ablest speeches at
Sunderland on Wednesday, though he might have spared the Government of 1880-1885, for the errors of which he was in part responsible, some of his very candid criticism. He pressed the question whether the Gladstonians who had so bitterly reproached the Liberal Unionists for deserting them in 1886, would really have desired to see Mr. Gladstone's Bill passed with all the faults which they had since discovered in it. Was it not clear that if it had passed,—as it would have done but for the Liberal Unionists,—the whole of the Parliament would have been wasted in trying to repair the errors in the Bill of 1886,—and that instead of Ireland having been cleared out of the way, she would have absorbed the time of the Imperial Legislature more than ever P And if that be so, what right have they to take so high a line in relation to the present or future action of the Liberal Unionists in the same sense ? Might it not prove to be as beneficent as their action in 1886 Were it not for the frightful chaos into which Ireland, and probably Egypt, would be thrown by a Gladstonian victory, Mr. Chamberlain believed that nothing could be more fortunate for the Unionists than a return of Mr. Gladstone to power. Imagine, he said, a Gladstonian Cabinet endeavouring to satisfy at one and the same time the Catholic hierarchy and the English Nonconformists ; recon- ciling the policy of Mr. John Morley with the policy of Mr. Tom Mann ; striking out a foreign policy that would meet the views alike of Lord Rosebery and of Mr. Labouchere; and further, repealing the Union, abolishing the House of Lords, dis- establishing the English Church, and shutting up every public-house. To behold this would indeed be apolitical luxury, but it would he a luxury far too expensive for us to afford.
