On the same day Sir Stafford Northeete spoke in Marylebone
at a meeting held under the presidency of Lord John manning, —both Lord John Manners and Sir Stafford Northeote keeping within the limits of moderate party feeling far more success- fully than Sir Michael Hicks-Beach. Sir Stafford Northcote harped on the advance in the gross expenditure as if a great part of that advance were not absolutely independent of all party policy. Further—unintentionally, of course—he mis- represented Mr. Gladstone as having proposed to diminish the relative weight of the metropolis and to increase the relative weight of the distant portions of the United Kingdom, in the House of Commons,—the truth being that Mr. Gladstone pro- posed just the contrary, to increase the representative weight of -the metropolis -in the House of Commons far more than he proposed to increase the weight of distant portions of the United Kingdom, though he added that he did not think it necessary that London, being so near and so potent, should be quite so fully represented in proportion to its vast numbers as the thinly populated and, very distant portions of the United Kingdom ought to be in proportion to their small numbers—a totally different position from that which Sir Stafford Northcote attributed to him, and a much sounder one. Finally, Sir Stafford assailed strongly the vacillation in Egypt, and promised great things for the Conservative policy of the future,—which, however, whenever that Govern- ment may succeed to office, we doubt Sir Stafford Northcote's power to guarantee. The intentions may be the intentions of Sir Stafford Northcote, but the deeds will be the deeds of Lord .Salisbury.
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