Mr. Chamberlain made a brilliant speech at the Liberal Union
Club on Tuesday. He first referred to the impatience of some Conservatives for the policy of what is called " fusion " between Liberal Unionists and Conservatives, and deprecated it as very dangerous to the cause of Union. A fusion would make it very difficult, he said, for Radical Unionists like him- self to merge themselves in the Conservative Party, while it is not at all difficult to treat the question of Union as so much more important than any other, that for the present all the differences which exist between Radical Unionists and Con- servative Unionists ought to be honestly and avowedly shelved. In the meantime, the policy of the united party had been a policy of progress. Far greater reforms had been achieved than the Gladstonian Party could have carried if they had remained in power after the dissolution of 1886. Moreover, the Gladstonians knew that they had been duped. In 1886 the "Union of Hearts" was to follow the disunion of the Empire. But in 1892 it was known that the "Union of Hearts" could hardly be achieved at all. The Home-rule Bill of the future was to be something much worse than that which was accepted by Mr. Parnell's dissimulation as a final settlement, and was afterwards termed a " trumpery " Bill, useful only as the thin end of the wedge is useful. But on this part of Mr. Chamberlain's masterly speech we have said enough in another column.
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