Lord Hartington referred to the great Gladstonian demon- stration of
last November, of which Mr. Morley had spoken so eloquently as one the significance of which could never be over-estimated, and asked whether the recent election for Birmingham, so soon followed by the great meeting at which he was speaking, had not proved to every one but Mr. Morley's satisfaction that an even greater significance should be attached to the demonstration of the day. There was this difference, too, between them. The Gladstonians had made a demonstra- tion in favour of some change which they were not willing to define, and which Mr. Gladstone and his lieutenants did not even wish to help them to define ; whereas the demonstration of the Liberal Unionists had a very definite meaning indeed,— that they would not allow the power of Parliament over Ireland to be disestablished, or even to be enervated. Lord Hartington anticipated that a more active policy of conciliation in Ireland might now be inaugurated,—a more extensive scheme for turning the Irish tenants into freeholders, and for developing Irish industries. As for "the -Union of Hearts "between Great Britain and Ireland, no party desired it more earnestly than the Liberal Unionists ; but the Union of Hearts would be im- possible without mutual respect, and the Gladstonians had certainly not gone the way to excite that respect. Lord Hartington was most enthusiastically received, and the whole demonstration was a curious comment on Mr. Gladstone's remark last November in the same place, that Bingley Hall was big enough to hold all the Liberal Unionists in the country. Apparently even the Liberal Unionists of Birmingham found Bingley Hall a great deal too small for them, for they thronged it and had to send many disappointed away.
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