The United Club held an " At home" on Tuesday
night, at which Mr. Goschen made a speech, and declared that he should be very glad when the time came for explaining to Parliament what the intentions of the Government are in relation to the strengthening of the Navy,—an under- taking to which he has evidently devoted already a great deal of time and energy. And he assured the Club that the last thing the Government contemplated, was frittering away its strength upon the attempt to remodel the Constitution of the country. We are very glad of that declaration so far as it applies to the next, or even perhaps to the next but one, Session of this Parliament. But we confess we should be very sorry if the Government were to give up any idea of so remodelling the representative institutions of the country as to let the Parliament expire without reducing the Parlia- mentary strength of the Irish representatives to something like their fair numerical proportion to the Parliamentary strength of the representatives of Great Britain. The Irish party would not only be less truculent, but wiser, because much more reasonable and sober, if it were no longer able to exaggerate its own importance in the United Kingdom.
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