Mr. Morley also made a speech at Bedford on Wednesday
on the Irish Question, and a very hackneyed speech it was. He accused Lord Selborne and Mr. Chamberlain of having made speeches at Birmingham which showed that they were destitute of humour, only because the charges they brought against their opponents might have been retorted upon them. That may be quite true; but does it show that a man is destitute of humour to see vividly in the case of another, the absurdity of modes of speech or conduct which he does not see quite so vividly in his own case If that were to imply being destitute of humour, we should have to pronounce that some of the greatest humorists of our day had been destitute of it. Then Mr. Morley went on to illustrate in his own person the difficulty which humorists feel in applying to their own case the jokes which they make upon others, by first ridiculing the vagueness of Lord Hartington's and Mr. Chamberlain's land policy for Ireland, and then assuring his audience that nothing would be easier than to draw a good Home-rule Bill for Ireland so soon as the English people had shown that they accepted the common-sense of the situation, and were pre- pared to give self-government to the sister-island. It may be said that nothing can be easier than to dance the egg- dance, a dance in which the dancer has to thread his way among long strings of eggs without breaking any of them ; and perhaps that may be so to those who have had a long course of training for it. But who has had a long course of training in dancing such a constitutional egg-dance as that of which Mr. Morley anticipates the execution with a light heart P
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