To this great speech, the dignity and comprehensiveness of which
can hardly be exaggerated, Lord Randolph Churchill replied with an earnest, and to some extent successful, attempt to take up the attitude of a statesman. He spoke of the treat- ment they had received from the leader of Opposition as considerate, and, he might say, magnanimous ; but he was evidently much offended at the suggestion that there was a secret understanding between the Parnellites and the Govern- ment—an attitude of mind which createda good deal of amuse- ment in the Liberal Party. He attempted to make out that Lord Carnarvon's Viceroyalty had been received with a burst of something like popular enthusiasm ; and he declared that it would never do to extend the Scotch law authorising preliminary inquiries on oath, when no one is as yet accused as the author of a crime, to England. He did not say why provisions which suit North Britain so well, should be so oppressive in South Britain. But the speech, if lame, was, on the whole, sane and sober, which has not usually been the characteristic of Lord Randolph's speeches.
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