Lord Salisbury delivered a very powerful speech at Brad- ford
on Wednesday, describing the Gladstonians as so anxious to keep recasting the Constitution at the shortest in- tervals, and even with the very small majority which they now command, that they are teaching the English people to regard the Constitution mainly as something of which they have /30 real experience, except as "a thing to be recon- structed." For no sooner is one reconstruction effected than they begin to agitate for another. They have a good ship, but it is always in dock ; a splendid coach, always in the coachmaker's hands; a good and powerful engine, at the engineer's ;—the English Constitution is never rcally known to the English people except as something needing repairs. It was not always so. Lord Palmerston for seven years had a majority varying like the present Govern- ment's, between 20 and 40; but he never attempted to use it to overwhelm the party opposite with revolutionary changes in the hope of ultimately doubling or trebling his majority at their expense. He took things quietly, and raised no funda- mental controversies. Even Mr. Gladstone did not, till 1885, attempt great things with inadequate means. He got great majorities, and then, of course, the Peers gave way. But now, instead of joining the Peers in simplifying the transfer of land as the Peers were anxious to do, or enabling accused persons to give evidence, if they chose, in their own defence, as the Peers had five times attempted to do, they try to use their narrow majority for the purpose of disintegrating the Empire, dis- establishing Churches, and "filling up the cup" against the House of Lords. Of course they fail, and of course they justify the House of Lords, in the eyes of the people, in con- tributing to their failure, when they try to turn so poor an instrument as their dwindling majority to such ambitious purposes.
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