Lord Randolph Churchill made an extremely clever and extremely scurrilous
speech at Blackpool on Thursday, which will not improve his reputation with the constituencies for political sincerity. The parties led by Mr. Parnell and Mr. Gladstone, said Lord Randolph, "have too much in common to be alienated from each other for long. General destruction and all-round plunder are alike their pleasure, their duty, and their pride." In Egypt, under Arabi, a great patriotic movement was going on, when Mr. Gladstone intervened and shattered it ; "from that disastrous day till now, he has wandered amid the devastation purposeless and bewildered,—has made no effort to reconstruct Egyptian society, made no effort to relieve from their burdens the Egyp- tian people ; but haunted and distracted by the guiltiness of his intervention, has added misery to misery and woe to woe, till he has transformed the fair land of Egypt into a perfect hell upon earth." Again, "Sir Stafford Northcote and Mr. Gladstone, contending about financial extravagance, always remind me of the two men who went up into the Temple to pray,— Sir Stafford Northcote occupying the pleasing and hope- ful position of the publican, Mr. Gladstone that of the purblind and sanctimonious Pharisee." Of course, Lord Randolph does not believe any of this, and is less intelligent than we suppose, if he expects the public to give him credit for believing it. His speech has the evil smell of moral decomposition about it, from beginning to end.
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