Yesterday week there was a great Liberal Unionist demon- stration
in Bingley Hall, Birmingham. There were about thirteen thousand persons present, and as the doors had to be
opened two hours before the meeting commenced, a military band was engaged to play during the delay. Mr. Chamberlain presided, and Lord Hartington was the guest of the evening. Mr. Chamberlain opened his speech with a warm eulogy on Mr. Bright and on his unfaltering firmness during the last as well as during the earliest portions of his political career. Mr. Chamberlain reviewed the attitude of the Liberals towards the Parnellites in the autumn of 1885, when "that dis- tinguished soldier of fortune, Sir William Harcourt," taunted the Tories with "stewing in Parnellite juice," and called heaven and earth to witness that he at least would have nothing to do "with the unclean thing." But when Mr. Gladstone changed his policy, Sir William Harcourt was the first to follow. Indeed, Sir William reminded Mr. Chamberlain of what the Trinity Brothers call "a revolving light with vary- ing periods of obscuration ;" and Mr. Chamberlain thought that if he could be persuaded to let himself be fixed somewhere on the coast, he would fulfil to admiration the functions of this new light. On politicians of this nimble kind no reliance could be placed ; but the Liberal Unionists stand "for the integrity of the Empire, stand for the inheritance of our race," and will have nothing to do with proposals "humiliating to our pride, injurious to our honour, and fatal to our interests."
