27 FEBRUARY 1886, Page 2

On Thursday evening, Mr. Shaw-Lefevre presided at a dinner to

celebrate the Liberal victory in St. Pancras, at which, as we understand the report, he expressed, as a defeated candidate, his sympathy with the feeling that to be cut off from the House of Commons, after a long-established habit of sharing its life,

is a condition of great privation ;—an interesting, but somewhat

surprising confession, to those who only watch the dreary dis- cussions in the House from outside. After a tribute to Lord Rosebery,— who was to have presided, but was unable to attend, —and a very just censure on the Tories for their desire to make Mr. Childers responsible for the London riots,—and, as Mr. Shaw- Lefevre very justly said, he ivoidd have been responsible for any failure to preserve order, if on his very first day of office he had interfered with the arrangements made by his predecessor and by the permanent Staff,—and for their attempt to treat Mr. John Morley's remarks about the use of the military to support evictions in Ireland as a "no-rent manifesto," Mr. Lefevre went on to avow his own bias towards Home-rule and the Home-rule policy of the Government. On this he had nothing original to say. He himself evidently believes in the value of the "guarantees" and " securities " by which Home-rule is to be restrained from injuriously affecting the unity of the Empire. That, we fear, shows that Mr. Lefevre, like Dickens's " Mar- chioness," is gifted with the power "to make-believe very much."