Mr, Chamberlain made an admirable speech at Birmingham on Tuesday.
He remarked that it was evident from Lord Salisbury's speeches that the Tories had learnt nothing and for- gotten nothing since the general election. It was true that Sir Stafford Northcote had, to some extent, whittled down and diluted the views of Lord Salisbury ; but Sir Stafford Northcote was returned for this very purpose,—" to reassure the timid, to minimise the truculent declarations of other leaders of the party," Sir Stafford reminded Mr. Chamberlain of Goldsmith's Madame Blaine •
"She strove the neighbourhood to please, With manners wondrouti winning; She never followed wicked ways, Except when she was sinning."
Mr. Chamberlain admitted the difficulties under which the Liberals were labouring, and only wished it had been possible to let the late firm "pay its own debts and wind up its own lawsuits," for it was out of these that our difficulties had grown. Reviewing the various messes which the Tories had bequeathed to us, he showed that all of them had embarked us in great trouble, but that none even of their positive sins had bred more trouble than their neglect, during the earlier time of Irish bad harvests and the early days of the Land League, to provide against the unjust rackrenting and evictions in which the seeds of the present anarchy were planted. Mr. Chamber. lain concluded with a hearty and eloquent tribute to his great chief as " the ablest and the noblest of English statesmen,"
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