LORD SALISBURY AND MR.. GLADSTONE.
I TO THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR."1 SIR,—Lord Melbourne once said to a friend of mine, " You talk of the power of truth; I am much more afraid of the power of falsehood." This was recalled to me when I read your article
called " Mr. Gladstone's Proposal." Are you aware that Lord Salisbury never used the expressions attributed to him by Mr. Gladstone, that the whole story was absolutely contradicted in both Houses of Parliament on Friday night, and that Ministers apologised for their inaccuracy ? I trust to your well-known spirit of candour to give this note a place in your next issue.— [Of course we wrote last week before we could have heard or read the explanations of Friday. But those explanations, though they prove that Lord Salisbury did not repeat the expressions he had previously made on the occasion when he declined the compromise offered by the Government, leave the matter as it was. Lord Salisbury did not use the phrase as to the halter. He did use the phrase as to the pistol at his head, and the one phrase was perfectly equivalent to the other.—En. Spectator.]
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