On Friday, July 5th, Lord Rosebery made a speech to
a great gathering of Home-rulers at the Albert Hall. There was nothing, he said, in the late Government to defend,— "nothing in its life, nothing in its death, nothing in its spirit, nothing in its work. It lived a noble life. It died a noble death.', After adding that it left behind it a mighty surplus, Lord Rosebery went on to describe the social legislation passed by his Ministry. Let the "great God-given Government" we have now got see if they could rival their opponents' list of measures. Lord Rosebery next harked back to the old point of English hostility to Home-rule. This time, however, the predominant partner figured as an obdurate Pharaoh, who would not let the people of Ireland go. Lord Rosebery, however, opined that he might be worried into acquiescence, and he ended by nailing to the mast almost the whole of that Newcastle programme which the week before he had treated so cavalierly. The speech was indeed as different in tone from that made to the Eighty Club as it is possible to conceive. After comparing the two, 3ne is inclined to ask with Junius, "Is this the wisdom of a great statesman, or is it the ominous vibration of a pendulum?"
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