Lord Selborne made an admirable point in his speech at
Alton on Monday, in reference to Mr. Gladstone's reproach to Lord Hartington and the Liberal Unionists, that by leaving him they had shifted the centre of gravity of the Liberal Party towards the Radical wing, and had thereby compelled the Liberals to take up a policy more advanced than Mr. Gladstone himself would have desired. It was rather hard, said Lord Selborne, to taunt those who resisted extreme proposals as more responsible for them than those who sanction and endorse them. Yet that is what Mr. Gladstone does when he complains of having been compelled to become more Radical than he would wish, only because the Moderates have found themselves compelled to leave him. We fully agree with Lord Selborne. What would have been said if reforming Catholics had complained that Luther, by abandoning the Pope, had shifted the centre of gravity of the Church towards the Ultramontane party, and had attempted in that way to make Luther responsible for what he most disapproved in the policy of Rome? Surely those who are responsible for an extreme policy are, as Lord Selborne says, "those who were in favour of it, and not those who were not." That is a simple proposition, but it clears away a great deal of sophistry.
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