On Wednesday, Lord Salisbury made a considerable number of small
speeches at Nottingham, some of them of singular ability. He spoke of the conduct of the Liberal Unionists with the utmost warmth, OS conduct that had been historically almost unique; and described the Gladstonian policy as just now resembling a dissolving view at the crisis when the features of the old scene are melting away, and those of the new scene are just beginning to appear, the combination of images being somewhat perplexing. By all Gladstonian prin- ciples, Ireland ought to have got worse, and as unfortunately for those principles, she had got better, the Gladstonians were rather at a loss. Consequently, they are throwing out vague feelers in the direction of Socialism, being sure that after the great change of front in 1886, there can never be any difficulty in abandoning a policy which they have seemed to favour. The older Gladstonians understand "the philosophy of loopholes," but the younger politicians who have not yet mastered that philosophy, show the most naive desire to embark on a limitless sea of change, and to fling away every constitutional principle in the fervour of their logical develop- ment of the principles of Home-rule.
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