Lord Zetland made a speech at a Conservative banquet at
Richmond (Yorkshire), on Monday, in defence of his desertion of the Liberal Party. He declared that the North Riding contest was a purely political and not at all a social contest; that had a tenant- farmer stood in the Conservative interest, and a great landlord for the Government, the poll would have been practically unchanged. It had taken him eighteen months to make up his mind to desert his party, but it was the Disturbance Bill of 1880 which compelled him to resign his office under the Liberal Government. He agreed with Lord Beacon afield that that Disturbance Bill was a reconnaissance in force by the Radical and revolutionary party. The Irish Land Act had done no good, but much harm. It had increased the number of outrages, and reduced Ireland to anarchy. The Government, moreover, had, in two short years, lost all influence abroad ; and the new ideas threatened to wash away "the bulwarks of our Constitution, and shake the very foundations of the most sacred of our institu- tions." Lord Zetland was quite right to turn Tory. If he can see the facts of the case—even in relation to foreign policy —so topsy-turvy as this, the light within him must have long ago been turned to darkness, and he has now gone as a poli- tician to his own fit and proper place.
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