stone and his followers, and to the Irish Nationalists, for
their share of responsibility for the businesslike proceedings of Party."
the House. But he attributed a great deal of the credit Mr. Chamberlain, in reply, lamented his own inability to- to the Government for not having made any serious blunder, glide over thin ice with Lord Granville's perfect tact ; and and thence, again, he inferred that it is better for a Govern- as he could not say anything indiscreet about a Treaty ment not to be too strong, but to depend on its circum- still unratified, he felt himself rather in the position of Figaro spection and judgment for its success. He declared that a in Beaumarchais' comedy, when asked to edit a journal, but large section of the Tories are now utterly opposed not only to abstain from expressing any opinion on the conduct of to reaction, but to inaction. He threw out rather a significant the Government, on morality, politics, or religion,—where- hint as to his own course, when he anticipated that if the upon he proposed to call his journal Le Journal Inutile. He Government persevere in the course which they are now was afraid, he said, that he must pronounce a discours inutile ; pursuing, the House of Commons would be busily and but if not very useful, his discourse was at least very pleasant arduously occupied in the next Session " on the solution of on the extraordinary revolution which has taken place in the three great Irish problems of the age,—the land, the English opinion since the time when it was thought so development of Irish local liberty, and the question of Irish dangerous to Americanise our institutions.
education." Mr. W. H. Smith's reply to Sir E. Watkin on Tuesday does not seem to show that the Government antiei- Mr. Balfour was entertained on Wednesday by the National pates for itself what Lord Randolph Churchill anticipates Union of Conservative Associations, and made one of the for it. humorously courageous speeches which Painellites dislike so
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