Sir Michael Hicks-Beach addressed a gathering of working men at
a dinner of the Bristol Working Men's Conservative Association on Wednesday, and maintained that the Govern- ment had shown some constructive power in the recent legisla- tion which they had carried. Mr. Gladstone, on the other hand, he said, headed a party "of conflicting fads." The Gladstonians were united in the common wish to deprive some persons and classes of property and rights, but they were not at all agreed as to whom they ought chiefly to attack. There were moderates even among the aggressives, and the moderates wished to begin with a new Reform Bill. We hardly agree with Sir Michael in this judgment, as Sir George Trevelyan is amongst the chief advocates of a new Reform Bill, and Sir George Trevelyan, with his vehement anti-State Church policy, can hardly be termed a moderate amongst the leading Glad- stonians. We should call even Mr. John Morley more moderate than he. Sir Michael advocated a further effort to improve the houses of the poor by the help of loans to local authorities, and recommended a more lenient administration of the Poor-Law without an increase of the rates,—a condition which Sir Michael Beach will not find it at all easy to comply with, if outdoor relief is really to be more freely given.
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