Lord Randolph Churchill fired off another letter against Sir Stafford
Northcote and in favour of Lord Salisbury in Monday's Times, which would not have done much execution in any case, but being followed, as it fortunately was, by Lord Salisbury's explosion in the House of Lords on Monday night, only served to illustrate the singularly blind and undiscriminating judgment which Lord Randolph Churchill carries into political life. His chief contention is that Sir Stafford Northcote, instead of stand- ing by Lord Salisbury on the question of the Arrears Bill, virtually threw him over, and rendered it impossible for Lord Salisbury to insist successfully on the Lords' Amendments ; and that Sir Stafford would have joined the Government on the subject of the Bradlaugh dispute, but for Lord Beaconsfield's declaration on the other side. We do not in the least doubt that Lord Randolph is quite right on both heads. Sir Stafford Northcote is a genuine Conservative,—thoroughly indisposed to .concede large Liberal demands, but also still more indisposed to excite the country by rash resistance to those demands, when he foresees that sooner or later they must be conceded. That is, of course, an attitude of mind very vexations to the 'Tory Democrat who really believes that he could lash the nation into fury with the Liberals and their proposals ; but then, where is the evidence that the Tory Democrat is, we do not say so much right, as even not very far wrong ? Lord Salisbury seems to us to show as little sympathy with the
genuine Tory instincts as he does with the genuine Democratic instincts, and Lord Randolph Churchill, in this respect, follows faithfully in the footsteps of Lord Salisbury.
