A great number of speeches have been made during the
last week by many of the foremost statesmen, in view of the approaching General Election, to the results of which every- body sees that the highest importance will attach. Besides the Ulster demonstration on Friday week, Mr. Chamberlain delivered two speeches to his constituents. In the one de- livered at the Middle-Class Schools, Frederick Street, he made it known that during the Round-Table negotiations for the re- union of the Liberal Party in 1887, he wrote to Mr. Morley that so earnestly did he then desire the union of the party to which he had belonged, and the settlement of the Irish Ques- tion, that "if he considered, or his party considered, that any objection to myself personally stood in the way of an agree- ment," "I was personally prepared, if that agreement was arrived at, to retire altogether from public life. That was my offer, and you can judge therefore how far I was animated by personal ambition or by petty spite." The offer was not accepted ; and Mr. Chamberlain now sees that, in his desire to effect the reunion of the party, he was disposed to yield too much to the Irish demand for Home-rule. We have no doubt 'that Mr. Chamberlain's offer was thoroughly genuine, and that he made it believing that it might really be accepted ; but we cannot say that we should have thought well of any treaty sealed with such a sacrifice. A reconciliation bought by the offering up of such a victim, would be sure to embitter the feud much more than to appease it.
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