7 NOVEMBER 1896, Page 19

Lord Crewe addressed a joint meeting of the Eighty Club

and the Cambridge University Liberal Club at Cambridge on Thursday, and said the usual things which the chiefs of the Liberal party are accustomed to say on these occasions, but in a tone of unusual moderation. The interesting feature in his speech was his very reserved tone on the Irish Home- rule question. He thought the Liberals "should find out very clearly exactly what were the wants of Irish local government and exactly where it stood, and what means they as Liberals were prepared to adopt to advance it, and then they should come to a clear understanding upon the question of the House of Lords." That seems to us to imply that Lord Crewe has now no wish to insist on a separate Parlia- ment for Ireland, and that he thinks Ireland may be fairly well satisfied with some much smaller concession, so long as such concession can be wrung out of the House of Lords. And as the Gladstonian. Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, Lord Crewe ought to have a very fair judgment on such a subject as this. No one probably knows better than Lord Crewe that, like most other agitators, Irish agitators may be per- suaded to abate very considerably their nominal demands.