Mr. Chamberlain's reply, which appeared on Wednesday, was extremely temperate
and brief. He thinks that Lord Randolph's version of the facts is in no material respect different from his own, since he has not prodnoed the terms of the agreement which is said to have been violated, and has vir- tually shown that the vague understanding which existed never ripened into anything like a positive agreement. Mr. Cham- berlain adds that before discovering what representation the Conservatives as a separate party deserve in Birmingham, it would be well to obtain some clearer notion of the relative strength of the Conservative and Liberal Unionist Party, as to which he evidently regards Lord Randolph Churchill's in- formation as quite misleading. For our own parts, we do not see the need or even the -wisdom of discriminating between the two, especially as it comes, in nine cases out of ten, to asking what a man was four years ago, rather than what he is now What is a Unionist to reply to such a question who has only been born politically since 1886 ?
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