Mr. John Morley has been speaking during the past week
in Scotland. He began at Glasgow yesterday week, with a general review of the situation, in which he maintained, with the Irishman, that he and his party "were in a majority all through last Session except in numbers,"—in other words, except where it could be verified, a kind of subjective majority which it is easy enough for both parties to attain. He began,' of course, with the Education Bill, which the Gladstonians are so proud of having blocked, that they crow over it till they almost think that the sun has risen upon their darkness, —Mr. Morley himself assuring his party that the affiance between the Government and the Church of England will be as fatal to its prospects as King Charles's alliance with it was to his own head. We should say, on the other hand, that the alliance of the Opposition with the anti-religions party is still more likely to be fatal to it in an age when, whatever else may be said of the national Church, no one can justly say of it that it is either intolerant or too dogmatic,—if it be not even too vague and sympathetic with all sorts and conditions of religious belief. Mr. Morley showed his courage by nailing Irish Home-rule to the mast of the Liberal party, declaring that the bitter squabbles and divisions in the Irish party are all due to the long misgovernment of England, and solemnly assuring his audience that secret societies are lifting their heads once more in Ireland, and can only be ex- tinguished by some scheme of self-government. Moreover, he scoffed at the Tories for supposing that "exorbitant taxation" can be justified by "extravagant expenditure."
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