Lord Rosebery ended with a fine peroration specially ad- dressed
to London, "that awful place, full of life and full of death," and sat down amidst bursts of enthusiastic cheering. Indeed no synopsis, least of all one so necessarily brief as our own, can give an idea of the merit of his speech, which was marked by a lightness of touch and a literary charm too often absent from fiscal speeches. A strong feeling was mani- fested in the room—and recorded by the Times in its report with unusual emphasis—in favour of Lord Rosebery's leader- ship of the Liberal party; but to the expression of this feel- ing he carefully avoided any response, whether positive or negative. When directly challenged by a shout for him as leader, he paused to allow the cheering to subside, and then passed on, not even smiling, as if he had not heard. He is leading, as is evidenced by this speeches, and by his careful limitation of his blows to the protagonists on the other side ; but he is apparently determined to keep his right of deciding whether to lead or to remain an onlooker until the elections, which, we may add, he believes must come very soon. "The postponement of the Dissolution with such an issue in the air is," he says, "impracticable and impossible," if only, we may be allowed to suggest, because weariness of the whole subject will by and by tell so heavily in favour of leaving things as they are. The world will not occupy itself for ever with fiscalities, even if they are presented by Mr. Chamberlain every week in changing and illuminated colours, like a London night advertisement.
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