At the Assembly Rooms in the Belle Vue Gardens, Man-
chester, Mr. Balfour on Saturday last addressed an audience reckoned to consist of some ten or twelve thousand persons. Earlier in the day he presented a requisition to Mr. Chesters- T homson at that gentleman's house, and thence drove in an open carriage to the scene of the public meeting, escorted by an enor- mous procession of Conservative Societies,—a popular demon- stration which shows how strong a hold the Irish Chief Secretary has obtained upon the people, and how utterly absurd is the Gladstonian notion that Home-rule is only opposed by the classes. Here is the arch-coercionist and arch-anti-Nationalist received with an enthusiasm which no living statesman but Mr. Gladstone could have evoked. The first few words of his speech showed how deeply Mr. Balfour was touched by his reception. The man, who is always so entirely uninfluenced by the hatred of his foes, spoke, with a feeling almost pathetic in its simplicity and sincerity, of "the welcome that makes up in one moment for all the calumnies which have been poured upon me ever since I took the office I now hold." It was easy enough to bear unmoved the shameful accusations of falsehood, of cruelty, of condonation of murder, of influencing the course of public justice, and of attempting to kill his political opponents by prison tortures; but not the support a.nd en- couragement of his fellow-countrymen.
