Mr. Goschen made a very striking speech at West Bromwich
on Wednesday, in which he followed Mr. Gladstone's great speech at Birmingham, and showed some of his omissions and errors. Those of Mr. Goschen's recent queries which Mr. Gladstone had criticised, he had declared to be either stale or pettifogging; but Mr. Goschen showed it would be very difficult, judging by Mr. Gladstone's own standard to treat several of them as either stale or pettifogging. As Mr. Gladstone himself habitually goes back a hundred years in order not to be stale, Mr. Goschen thought it im- possible that he would have regarded a reference to the opinion of the late Sir Robert Peel on the Union as stale;
and if not stale, it was certainly not pettifogging. Then, again, it could hardly be stale to insist that when Mr. Morley treats the land question as one that ought to be settled before Home-rule is granted, while Mr. Davitt treats it as one that could not be settled till after Home-rule has been granted, Mr. Gladstone should declare which of his two dis- tinguished followers and colleagues he himself intends to sup- port. Now, as it is certainly not stale to press Mr. Gladstone to give some answer to this question, it will apparently fall into the category of pettifogging; yet any point less pettifogging than this, whether the land question in Ireland ought to be taken out of the hands of the Irish Home-rulers for settlement, or left in their hands, can hardly be conceived.
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