Mr. G. 0. Trevelyan made a very spirited speech to
his con- stituents at Hawick on Tuesday night, in which he criticised severely but justly Sir William Harcourt's strange conduct in so sharply attacking the Ministry under which, in almost the last hour of its existence, he had accepted service as Solicitor-General, and deprecated warmly what he called the " Tiverton-and-Taun- ton" doctrine,—the doctrine of Mr. Massey and Sir Henry James, —that Liberals should keep down their Liberalism in deference to the reaction of national opinion towards Conservatism and in- difference. " Rather than sneak into office by denying our principles, I would rather be outside Downing Street till Sir Henry James and myself were as old as the youngest Lieutenant- General in the British Army." Mr. Trevelyan earnestly urged the claims of the counties to household suffrage :—‘, We are not afraid," he said, " because we are in a minority, or ashamed be- cause the English counties have declared against us. We are in a large majority in Scotland. We are in a majority, small but real, in those English constituencies where the franchise is not confined to a limited class. Mr. Gladstone and Mr. Forster may say with sincerity, and, I think, not without dignity,—' Let others change their mind and lose their courage, but so will not we. We are still for household suffrage in the counties. We are still for placing the finance and administration of our rural districts in the hands of the representatives of the people. We are still for ex- tending compulsory education over the whole surface of the country. When people want these measures they will come to us. Till then we can afford to wait." That is sound and manly language, and we confess we like it a great deal better than that of the faint-hearted and minimising Liberals of Taunton and Tiverton.
