Even exclusively of the Guildhall dinner, it has been a
week of speeches. Mr. Chamberlain has spoken at Birmingham, Mr. Goschen has spoken twice and Sir Michael Hicks-Beach once at Bristol, and Lord Rosebery has spoken at Bristol too. Mr. Balfour has made an important speech at Ipswich, and Sir William Harcourt has been delivering something in his usual windy style, which is endurable only because with the great puffs of wind are mingled small puffs of wit, at Stratford. It is impos- sible to give anything like an outline of such a cataract of oratory, but we may mention a few of the leading points. Mr. Chamberlain's speech on Monday was entirely on the local differences between the Birmingham Tories and the Birming- ham Liberal Unionists, and was, of course, in favour of settling the dispute pacifically by arbitration, though Mr. Chamberlain himself thinks that the Liberal Unionists have the stronger case. Lord Rosebery, in his Bristol speech of Wednesday, taunted Mr. Chamberlain with apparently "endearing himself as much to his new friends as to his old." But to an outsider not on the look-out for a chance of delivering a political thrust, Mr. Chamberlain's attitude in Birmingham as the representa- tive of the Liberal Unionists seems to have been at once dignified, courteous, and conciliatory towards the Tory Party with whom he was in controversy. The reference of the dispute to the joint arbitration of Lord Salisbury and Lord Hartington was ultimately decided upon.
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