19 JANUARY 1867, Page 2

The Duke of Rutland exonerated the Tory party this day

week from Mr. Bright's accusation of waiting for the Irish famine before they would be persuaded to give up Protection. That was true, he said, of Sir Robert Peel, but not of the Tories, who would have stuck to it through the Irish famine, and who ascribed the Irish famine not to too much Protection, but too little. The Duke is more than a Don Quixote in his gallantry on behalf of departing things. He clings to ideas not only while they are dying, but after they are dead and buried.