Lord Granville on Tuesday presided at a dinner of the
Lon- don and Counties Liberal Union, and made one of his usual vol-au-vent speeches. There was very little in it, but it was nice. After praising the Union for organising Associations in the counties, he passed on to obstruction, and hinted that although the Foreign Office was not greatly interested in legis- lation, it had its share of the annoyance caused by obstruction. One method of obstruction was putting questions, and Mr. Bourke felt such a keen interest in Egyptian affairs, that he- asked in one Session three times the number of questions asked by Lord Enfield and Sir A. Otway during the whole six years through which the late Government were in office. Meanwhile, some of his friends took the part played in a Spanish bullfight by the picadors, " active young men, dressed in breeches. and ribands, with little lances and flags in their hands, who do the irritating portion of the business." Lord Gran- ville strongly defended the Corrupt Practices Act, declar- ing that the self-purifying process which it was hoped. was going on, had not begun ; that "a greater number of individuals were bribed in 1880 than ever were bribed before;"" that the nineteen petitions tried revealed frightful corruption; and that two and a half millions of money were spent in that election,—an average, allowing for the uncontested seats, of about £5,000 a seat. Lord Granville doubted the speedy arrival of a dissolution, but bewailed the number of electors interested in abuses which it was the business of Liberals to abolish. He need not be frightened. For every man interested in an abuse,. there is one concerned to abolish it, and the corrupt interests will no more expel the Liberals than the publicans did. The Tories trusted the innkeepers, and forgot that for every drinker in debt there are two " Blue-ribbon men." Even the great army of bankrupts, who do not like Mr. Chamberlain's Bill, is out- numbered by the greater army of those whom they have plundered..
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