In his speech at Southport, Mr. Cross explained that the
Radicals wished "to make a clean sweep of everything, and to begin over again ; they had no reverence for things, simply because they existed, and the fact of their existence was rather the reason why they should be changed." Mr. Cross himself hardly reverences things "simply because they exist," or he would not make war as he does on intemperate habits ; but who it may be who, only because a thing exists, wants to change it, he does not afford us any hint. We have commented elsewhere on the substance of his principal speech, but we may add here that he made the depression of trade the ground of a very sensible appeal to employers and workmen to cultivate a thoroughly friendly feeling with each other, and attributed not a little of the distress to that over-haste of men to be rich which induces them to overlook the signs of a coming period of depression, and to urge on speculation only the more eagerly the less response they find in the public. Mr. Cross maintained,—and we believe was right in maintaining,—that very few Governments which had gone through five Sessions, had lost so little support in that time as the present Government. And no doubt a showy Government often takes the fancy of a democracy, more than a sincere Govern- ment. But the reaction, when it comes, is all the greater.
