Mr. Joseph Cowen, M.P. for Newcastle-on-Tyne, who made so considerable
an impression last Session by his masterly speech on the Royal Titles Bill, after Mr. Disraeli's grotesque intimation that the title of "Empress" was meant as a weapon with which to fight Russia, addressed his constituents this day week on home policy ; and again on Tuesday, on the Eastern Question. Both speeches were very able, and both rather severe on the Government, though in the first speech he gave them credit for co-operating with more cordial unity than Mr. Gladstone's, and for being "as disinterested, high-spirited, and as sincerely anxious to labour for the welfare of their country as their predecessors." He did not, however, in any way justify them by their "works." They had given the Queen an additional title, and spent much money on the proclamation, at a moment when a quarter of a million of people had just been drowned in Bengal, and a territory inhabited by 8,000,000 of people was afflicted by famine in Central India. They had given the English people half-an-hour longer for drink, and had lowered the standard of education ; "their Judica- ture Act was Lord Selborne's emasculated ; their Commons Act Mr. George Lefevre's Bill, watered down till all its strength was destroyed; their Shipping Bill was the Bill of the late Govern- ment; and their Agricultural Holdings Act as poor a sham as had ever been palmed upon a patient people." He gave them credit for Mr. Cross's Labour Laws Amendment Act and Artisans' Dwelling Act, which was just, but also for Sir S. Northcote's Friendly Societies' Act, which was hardly less of a sham than the Agricultural Holdings Act. Mr. Cowen's criticism of Lord Beaconsfield did more justice to Lord Beaconsfield's fancy- Toryism than to his astute Tory-democracy and cultus of the Residuum. But on the whole, the speech was one of the ablest delivered during the Recess, and one of the most candid as well as one of the most Liberal.
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