Mr. Chamberlain made a spirited speech at Oxford on
Wednesday, on one important section of which, conveying his belief that the Purchase Bill would be wrecked by obstruc- tion, we have dwelt elsewhere. He attacked the leaders of the Opposition for deserting their own principles about Home- rule, quoting in particular a sentence written by Mr. Morley in the Nineteenth Century—(? Fortnightly Review)—some years ago. Mr. Morley had then remarked of Home-rule, that English statesmen would think twice before they ran the risk of "a squalid and reduced version of the Thirty Years' War." Mr. Chamberlain pointed out that, if Home-rule were granted, the very first business of Mr. Parnell, as Premier of Ireland, after sending all Ulster representatives to prison, would be to pass Mr. Balfour's Purchase Bill ! He contended that Local Councils could manage that Bill better than Parliament, but should not at present press that view, still less support any proposal to make the suggestion an " instruction " to the Committee. He did not believe that the National League could nullify the operation of the Bill, for the League, though all- powerful when supporting the interests of the tenants, was powerless to act against them. He concluded his speech by a trenchant attack on the New Radicals, who mimicked the Parnellites as some inferior insects imitate the colours, and even the forms, of insects stronger than themselves. He had no longer a hope of any reunion between such Radicals and the Unionists. Mr. Asquith had called the Unionist Party "the survival of an apostacy that had passed away ;" but he
hoped that party would prove the doctrine of "the survival of the fittest." When "the Gladstonians come back to power, it will not be Liberal principles which are in the ascendant, but the principles of the Chicago Convention,"—too savage a sentence, even if it covers only Mr. Labouchere.
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