Mr. Balfour addressed his constituents in East Manchester on Wednesday
at the Volunteer Drill Hall, Ardwick, where three thousand of his constituents were assembled. He anticipated a General Election within a comparatively short time, certainly within the year at longest, and brought out the great issue on which the election should be fought,—the contrast between a national policy carefully putting the interests of the whole nation in the front of the battle, and the policy of keeping various cliques and sections artificially together by reciprocal pledges to assist each other in destroying in turn the political aversion of each clique,—the unity of the Kingdom at the request of the Irish clique, the unity of the National Church at the request of the Welsh clique, and the unity of the Constitution itself at the request of the Radical clique. Mr. Balfour expected to see men whose one dream in life had been to become members of the House of Lords, voting under their agreement with the latter clique for the destruction of the House of Lords, and quoted the War Secretary, Mr. Campbell-Bannerman,—" a gentleman of great capacity, of great experience, and of great natural modera- tion which he keeps under severe control,"—as saying that the main objects of his party were to establish Irish Home-rule, to disestablish the Church, and to "deal with" the House of Lords. For himself and his party Mr. Balfour claimed that the ideal policy is to keep the Empire safe and powerful, to strike at the root of Socialism by inaugurating wise and temperate social reforms, and to preserve all our institutions which have life and health in them by wise modifications and adaptation to the special needs of the time. That, so far from being a negative policy, is the most salutary and con- structive policy that can be conceived. We foster life by wise nutrition and energetic exercise. Of the three thousand in the audience, only three held up their bands against the vote of confidence in Mr. Balfour.
Previous page
