Mr. Asquith made another excellent speech at Worcester on Monday.
After pointing out that up till now not a single one of the score of Parliaments in our self-govern- ing Colonies had passed a resolution in favour of the new policy, he passed to a consideration of Mr. Chamber- lain's efforts to rewrite the history of the past, and his recantation of the views expressed in 1885, when he denounced Fair-trade—the precursor of his present scheme —as involving " the return to those bad times of Protection and the Corn-laws which were responsible for the destitu- tion and the starvation wages from which your forefathers suffered so greatly." Mr. Chamberlain had changed his opinions since then, but because he had done so the founda- tions of the universe had not shifted, nor had the facts of history altered. In conclusion, he observed that this first step upon a slippery journey on the strength of a series of unproved and improvable assumptions was more than a leap in the dark ; it was a piece of political plunging.
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