Sir Henry James and Lord Hartington made very striking speeches
at St. James's Hall on Wednesday, Sir Henry James pointing out that there was no political subject on which the pioneers of reform had not been chosen from among the Liberal Unionists. Lord Hartington was selected to head the Commission on Labour, because no other man could be equally trusted; Mr. Chamberlain was looked to as the pioneer in the great movement for securing the best insurances for the old age of the poor; Mr. Jesse Collings was universally regarded as the best counsellor of the agricultural labourer ; he himself had been entrusted with the needful provisions for revising the inspection of factories ; and Mr. T. W. Russell was at the very head of the movement for i,mproving the position of the Irish tenants. Lord Hartington dwelt on the terrible Irish evils which would result from the triumph of the Gladatonians at the General Election. It would mean the reopening of all the sores of Ireland, the panic of the minority, the stimulating of the passions Of the majority, the revival of the mutual jealousies between Protestant and Catholic, between landlords and tenants, and of the impression of the Irish Constabulary and Police that those who had been most faithful and most active would now be thrown over and punished.
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