Lord Lansdowne was the chief speaker at a Liberal Unionist
demonstration held in Edinburgh on Wednesday. In regard to foreign relations, while noting how the Prime Minister's visions of a golden age had been rudely shattered by the Hague Conference, Lord Lansdowne frankly admitted that the present Government professed to follow; and did follow, the lines laid down by their predecessors. He con- gratulated them in particular on the Anglo-Russian Agree: meat, which had substituted written engagements for vague verbal assurances, and was a distinct step in advance, though he was inclined to think that we had the worst of the bargain in Tibet and Persia. Turning to the House of Lords, he rallied Mr. Lloyd-George for warning the Peers not to meddle with trade because they knew too little about it, or with the land because they knew too much. As a matter of fact, at least half-a-dozen of the Peers created by the present Government had won their laurels in business of one kind or another. He could only account for the absence of any new peerages from the last Birthday Gazette on the supposition that his Majesty's advisers were afraid to face the ridicule which had already attached to them for strengthening the crew of the ship 'which they were attempting to scuttle. Finally, Lord Lansdowne, "after a brief reference to the Fiscal con- troversy and social reform," the nature of which is not ' reported in the Times, attributed the grave and scandalous condition of Ireland to the levity with which the Government had treated a serious outbreak of crime and conspiracy.
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