Lord Granville's speech was, as usual,happy as well as pointed.
He declared that it would be impossible for the Government to conclude a commercial treaty with France less favourable than the last, but expressed his strong hope that a treaty not less favourable might be concluded, to cement the friendship and good-will between the two countries. He insisted on the value of our cordial relations:with the United States, and gave a rap to Sir H. Drummond Wolff for sneering at the 'Alabama' arbi- tration, which both Sir Stafford Northcote and Lord Beacons- field, in the name of their party, had approved. Lord Gran. rifle declared that even the American-Irish are now so friendly to England, that they view the Land League Fund with dis- favour, a state of things which could not have been without the 'Alabama' arbitration. And he concluded his speech by a passage in which he chivalrously anticipated a long continuance of the Prime Minister's brilliant career. Recalling the regrets expressed by two colleagues of Lord Palmerston's in 1854 on the evidence of his failing strength, Lord Granville reminded the country that for ten years more Palmerston continued to serve it. "Now, this recollection of mine has a moral. If for half a century there is one man who has obtained an unrivalled hold on public opinion,—a hold strengthened and confirmed by the tone which some of his political opponents think it becoming to adopt, a hold based on unique legislative ability and on a singular power of communicating political convictions to the masses, as well as to the most enlightened classes of his country- men,—I say, if there be such a man, and he happens to combine exceptional physical strength with intellectual power, I do not think it is absolutely necessary for us to refer to the average tables of an insurance company, to know for how many years we may hope that be will devote himself to his country, to which he has already rendered such brilliant services." No one equals Lord Granville in the power of saying a delicate and generous thing, of inflicting a sharp chastisement, and making a happy stroke of humour, in the same sentence, and, moreover, of blending the three points in- dissolubly in a single act of memory.
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