Lord Hartington on Monday made the Home Secretary's speech of
Saturday the subject of his address to the consti- tuency of North-East Lancashire, at Rawtenstall, and was ex- tremely amusing in his criticism. The Home Secretary, he said, had openly attacked the Liberals on the ground that they must have known before 1873 that the prosperity which had till then been advancing by leaps and bounds must come to a stand-still, and end in reaction. Would Mr. Cross have had them legislate to impede that undue flow of prosperity P If not, how are they to blame ? Should they have taxed the country while it was prosperous, by way of averting Nemesis P Or ought they to have diminished the burden of Debt while they could P Well, they did something in that direction ; but the Tories did not follow their lead, though they, too, must have anticipated the bad times coming. Then Lord Hartington went on to remark on Mr. Cross's lament over the alienation of Lord Derby, " whom be had loved from boyhood." Lord Hartington could. well believe it. He suspected Lord Derby, while iii the Cabinet, had not unfrequently done Mr. Cross's lessons for him, as clever boys often do the lessons of boys who are not so clever. Lord. Hartington concluded by criticising Mr. Cross's perpetual attacks on Mr. Gladstone and on the Liberals, for not knowing who their leader was. He denied that this was any business of Mr. Cross's, but he accepted willingly the challenge to treat the comparison between Mr. Gladstone's Administration and Lord. Bea2ons6eld's as the real issue on which the country was asked to judge. " Although I know there is no man in the country who stands in less need of any one fighting his battles, I can- not listen without some protest to the calumny, the unfounded, and the unnecessary abuse, which is heaped upon that great statesman, whose name will be honoured for generations among his countrymen in England."
