Sir Michael Hicks-Beach spoke at Gloucester on Tuesday, to the
Conservative Working Men's Benefit Society, in answer to the toast of "Her Majesty's Ministers." He thought that the Government was in very fair health, in spite of all the nails which, they had been assured, had been driven lately into their coffin. He declared that any charges against the police for their conduct in the Tipperary affray, would be investigated without any preconceived judgment by Mr. Balfour and the Government ; and he expressed regret that while men like Mr. Morley and Lord Spencer never defend the "Plan of Campaign" in the abstract, when they come to concrete instances of its application they never condemn it. As to the potato failure in Ireland, Sir Michael thought that Mr. Balfour, even though he were still in Scotland, would at least be able to deal with it much more effec- tually than Mr. Morley did with the scarcity in 1886, when he passed a Relief Act enabling the Government to relax the conditions under which outdoor relief was given, and appropriating 220,000 for the extra relief required. .Relief was then given to almost everybody in the Unions where the conditions had been relaxed, to relieving officers, to large farmers, persons with good deposit-accounts at the Bank, officials enjoying good pensions, and even to money-lenders themselves. When the 220,000 was spent, and the Unions which had enjoyed the relief found that they would be called upon to account for their expenditure, the number of persons relieved fell in one week in the most amazing way, from 18,500 to 3,500 in Clifden Union, from 67,000 to 7,900 in Galway Union, and from 28,500 to 5,300 in Swineford Union. Mr. Balfour, even while taking a well-deserved holiday at St. Andrews, could assuredly do better than that, even though Mr. John Morley in 1886 may have never taken any holiday at all.
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