On Monday, Mr. Gladstone received at Hawarden a deputa- tion
from the Hyde Reform Club, Cheshire, sent to congratulate him on his golden wedding, and made a speech which, like most of his speeches of late, was a little mixed. He made some admirable remarks on the late strike, which he thought had added strength to the side of labour in its struggle to arrange terms with capital, but added that the tendency among different trades to combine with one another was due to coercion in Ire- land, which, to speak plainly, is nbt sense. He gave a shrewd hit to the rural bimetallists, who were not, he intimated, influenced by any currency craze, but solely by the hope of the higher prices which would follow inflation. That is sharp-sighted ; but Mr. Gladstone added that Mr. Chaplin was a Protectionist, which was a little hard, as Mr. Chaplin now holds that view only as a counsel of perfection, just as a Quaker holds the doctrine of non-resistance, but pays for police protection. The remainder of the speech was all about the criminality of the means by which the Act of Union was carried—not worse, at all events, than the means by which the Saxons won Britain—and the non-existence of a compact with Ireland "according to the fleshly tablets of the heart." The arm of flesh, we quite acknowledge, has more to do with the Union than " fleshly tablets ;" but is not that true of every political arrangement P How much money would the Treasury receive if the Exchequer would not prosecute a defaulter ? Carlton Terrace is not saved from plunder by love, but by police.
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