At Montrose on Monday night, Mr. Baxter spoke at length
to his constituents on the political situation. We have analysed and criticised his speech elsewhere, but have there hardly done justice to his placid and even pleased acceptance of the Tory Government. "You will perhaps recollect that not very long ago I expressed no unwillingness to sit for awhile on the shady side of the House, and the prospect of it now affords me very considerable, if not unmixed satisfaction." For the divisions of the Liberals Mr. Baxter has evidently had "great searchings of heart ":—" If this ridiculous policy is to be pursued, the Tories will be in power, not for forty years, as a poor friend of mine who has lost his seat said to me the other day in the streets of London,—but for ever." It was the Tories' turn too ;— " Fair-play is a jewel, and turn-about is fair-play,"—an argu- ment which is hardly satisfied by giving the Tories power for only 10 years out of 42. But more than this, in Mr. Baxter's opinion, Mr. Disraeli is the kind of leader the country needs :—" The great master-mind, the man who has led them to victory, and without whom they are a mere bundle of sticks, is no old-world Tory, but a politician who thoroughly understands his countrymen and the House of Commons," and who " will neither stop nor reverse the engines, though for a time he may reduce the vessel's speed." This is not political disloyalty, for Mr. Baxter speaks of Mr. Gladstone with an earnest gratitude which is not as usual as it might be just now,--but it is, we suspect, that sympathy with the wish for quiet, which he himself attributes to the " well-to-do " classes. Lord Russell was a little too soon with his watch-cry of " Rest and be thankful." If he had proclaimed it after Mr. Gladstone's toilsome reforms, he would have been the man of the situation and the proper leader for Mr. Baxter.
