The Duke of Devonshire made a remarkable speech at Barnstaple
on Tuesday in support of the new Unionist can& dates for the various divisions of Devonshire, which out of thir- teen Members at present returns a Unionist majority of only one,—seven being for the Union and six for Home-rule. The most impressive part of the Duke's speech was a criticism on Lord Rosebery's extraordinary proposal to carry what he him- self called a great revolution in an almost equally divided nation, the English majority being on the wrong side, without a symptom of popular emotion to push his sensa- tional policy, and with his own party so divided as to what it desires, that while Lord Rosebery declares that nothing will induce him to go without a Second Chamber, his Radical followers threaten to desert him if he insists upon that con- dition, and the strongest of his younger colleagues hints pretty plainly that be at least is by no means inclined to respect Lord Rosebery's constitutional scruples. Moreover, as the Doke of Devonshire remarks, with a new Socialism growing up in the very heart of the Trade-Unions, and with the prospect flaunted before British workmen of working for the future, not for the advantage of themselves and their own families, but for that of a State Collectivism, in the wisdom and impartiality of which they are not at all likely to feet much coufidence, a considerable majority of the working class will be strenuously opposed to any measure which is intended to make constitutional revolutions easy, and tem- porary majorities reckless and despotic. It was a most masterly as well as a most temperate speech.
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