Mr. Chamberlain has been keeping an old engagement to address
meetings in Wales ; and on Saturday last delivered a rather neellessly-bellicose speech at Newtown, in Montgomery- shire, against Lord Randolph Churchill and Lord Salisbury. Lord Randolph's charge against the Municipality of Birming- ham, that it makes politics the test for all its officers, he de- clared to be simply " infamous " and a "wanton falsehood." "At all times, and even now, many of the principal officers of the Corporation are Conservatives, and no one has ever inter- fered in the slightest degree with their political independence:' He said that Lord Salisbury, in anticipating a possible renewal of the proposal made by Birmingham in 1832, to march on London, had expressed a hope that Mr. Chamberlain would marshal the procession, and get his head broken for his pains. Mr. Chamberlain replied to this that if Lord Salisbury would promise to come and meet the procession he would promise to head it, and then if his own bead should be broken "it would be broken in very good company." This is hardly the tone for a Cabinet Minister to take. It is perfectly true that both Lord Randolph Churchill and Lord Salisbury talked very big; but it is not fitting for a man in Mr. Chamberlain's position to overbid them by talking bigger.
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