On Tuesday, the Liberal Union Club gave a dinner to
Mr. T. W. Russell, M.P., at the "Criterion," Mr. Chamberlain in the chair. The chairman made, as usual, both a very lively and a very vigorous speech. He remarked that even Islam threatening death to the Infidels unless they accepted the new faith, had never surpassed the triumphant conversion effected in the Liberal Party by Mr. Gladstone's change of policy in 1885, when the crack of the Liberal whip was sounded in their ears. Sir William Harcourt in his most effusive mood had just been thanking Lord Hartington and Mr. Chamberlain for their declarations against Mr. Parnell, and had associated himself with them, when the great leader announced his new policy, and Sir William Harcourt at once conformed. Passing to the present day, Mr. Chamberlain said that though he had maintained that Home-rule was dead, he had never maintained that it was buried, and he was quite aware that its corpse might be still carried at the head of the Gladstonian army, as Edward I's corpse was carried at the head of the army which invaded Scotland.
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