One hundred years ago Mr James Lowther is our favourite
Tory speaker. He made a speech at Coventry, yesterday week, which ought to be reprinted and distributed by the Liberal Associations all over the coun- try. In it, Mr Lowther boasted that he had never been "one of those to bow the knee to the Baal of falsely-called Free- trade, — on the other hand, he had always denounced it as the most leviathan impostor of modern times, sacrificing the interests of the United Kingdom for the purpose of pandering to the interests of those who did not own the sway of her Majesty." How Sir Staf- ford Northcote must _groan over these speeches of Mr Lowther's! What use is it trying to persuade the nation that his is the cautious and reasonable party, when Mr James Lowther is sure to make a speech just before or just after him which excites ten times as much cheering as his own because it virtually represents the late Sir Robert Peel as a priest of Baal, who ruined England to serve the foreigner?
Spectator, 27 October 1883
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