Lord Hartington and Sir Henry James addressed a Unionist meeting
at Bury on Wednesday evening. Lord Hartington pointed out that the Liberal Unionists, after commenting very severely in 1885 on what they then regarded as the virtual alliance between the Parnellites and the Tories, could hardly have failed to comment in terms at least as severe on the alliance afterwards concluded between the Parnellites and Mr. Gladstone's followers, if they would have maintained their own self-respect at all. In the latter part of his speech, Lord Hartington reiterated his conviction that the country would not long allow the difficulties of Ireland to be made the battle-ground of mere party. In his opinion, half the danger of the situation consisted in the fact that Ireland has been made the battle-ground of party, and the Irish problem would never he solved while it remained so. He admitted that the public mind had not taken in adequately the magnitude of the evil involved, but he thought that it was beginning to awaken to that evil, and that some steps had been taken towards remedying it. The refusal of the Liberal Unionists to be dragged into opposition to the Conservative policy in 1886 was the first great step in that direction ; and the willing- ness of the Conservative Government to enter on measures which would previously have been thought too Liberal for them to take up, was the second great step in that direction.
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