Lord Salisbury made one of his most effective party speeches
at a dinner at the Crystal Palace, on Wednesday, in honour of the Conservative victories in Lambeth. Unfortunately, his most telling passage amounted to a charge of hypocrisy against Mr. Gladstone, in which we are quite sure that he himself did
not in the least believe You may have seen in the shops," be said, "perhaps you may have bought them, garments which have the advantage of being usable either in fine weather or in foul. They bear the name of reversible.' Now, if in our changeable English climate it is advantageous for a man to have a reversible garment about him, in our changeable English politics it is very useful to have a reversible programme. When Mr. Morley calls upon him, Mr. Gladstone is dressed in the garments of Home-rule, and Mr. Morley goes away convinced of the sincere and, I may say, holy attributes of the Minister with whom he has been conversing. When Mr. Gladstone con- verses with Lord Spencer or with Lord Kimberley, or a great number of other Peers whose opinions have always been adverse to Home-rnle,—and I may add Mr. Chamberlain,—then he assumes the other dress. He turns the coat inside out. The reversible garment is exposed on its other face, and they go away convinced of the splendid integrity of the defender of the unity of the Empire." Singular as we deem it, we believe that Lord Spencer knows at least as much of, and is at least as much in sympathy with, Mr. Gladstone's views on Irish government as Mr. John Morley himself. Lord Salisbury would be more ignorant of men than it is possible for a man in 'his position to be, if he supposed that Mr. Gladstone had either the wish or the power to wear a double face on any subject. But, of course, all this is said ad caplandttet, and because "strong things" are expected of party orators, and not because Lord Salisbury really holds such opinions as these. When he concluded his speech with an eloquent invective against "the path of wanton and needless change," we wish he had remembered how much wanton and needless change his own Government intro- duced in Ireland when they availed themselves of Parnellite aid to turn out the last Liberal Government, and when be allowed one of his chief colleagues to reflect in most unjust and, ungrate- ful terms on the Irish government of Lord Spencer.
