On Saturday last a letter from Mr. Herbert Cladstone was
read at a meeting of the Liberal Thousand at Leeds which has been taken by the Home-rule Press as a political manifesto of importance. After abusing the Government for many things, including legislative sterility and lack of a settled policy, Mr. Gladstone declares that the country will have to settle with the Government, for it is not likely that the Liberal party will ever again place itself at the mercy of the House of Lords, as in 1892-95. "This. Government will have to bear the yoke, and if they prove incapable of rising to their respon- sibilities, I hope that no party of progress will relieve them of their burdens without exacting conditions which will secure great measures dealing with Ireland, temperance, and other questions of the first magnitude, from the outrageous treat- ment such as was accorded to Liberal measures frora1892-95 by the Tories in the House of Lords." This no doubt means that if the Government were to be defeated by a snap v'ote or a revolt of their own supporters, the Home- rulers would refuse to accept office unless the King would first pledge himself to create, if called on to do so, Peers Sufficient to swamp any opposition in the Lords to Home-rule and other Liberal measures. Of course the King would give no pledge under such circumstances. If this is the official position taken up by the Home-rule party—and a Whip, we must presume, does not speak thus without first taking counsel—the Government may well feel themselves immovable. We cannot say we view this result with satisfaction, for it is not good for any Government to regard their position as im- pregnable. But perhaps we need not take Mr. Herbert Glad- stone's blood-curdling threats too seriously. We cannot help thinking that if the other side saw any chance of coming in and dissolving, they would do so without trying to exact pledges from anybody,—unless it were a pledge from their various leaders not to fight so much among themselves, but to have at least a year's truce.
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