Sir Henry James and Mr. Chamberlain both spoke, and both
spoke as identifying themselves with Lord Harlington in the crisis of the moment. "Us," said Sir Henry James, "no threats will intimidate and no bribes allure. We can only proceed doing our best for that cause which to some extent we have created, and which I am sure none of us present will be disposed to desert." And Mr. Chamberlain said that, though of late the Unionists had appeared to be losing ground, it was only because the Gladstonians had abandoned Gladstonian principles; and so Sir George Trevelyan had been returned to Parliament as a Gladstonian of the most gushing order, but pledged to oppose all the leading principles of Mr. Gladstone's measures. If the Unionists had been beaten, Mr. Chamberlain held that they had been beaten with weapons stolen from their own armoury. Perhaps ; but in our opinion they are weapons which should never have been in the Unionist armoury at all, and which cannot be effectively used in the Unionist cause. If Mr. Chamberlain is wise, he will make a present of these danger- ous weapons to Sir George Trevelyan, and limit himself, in future, to the use of those weapons which serve only to bind the Union closer, and not to drive wedges into its joints.
