On Thursday week, Mr. Chamberlain made a short speech to
the Liberal Divisional Council of West Birmingham on the Minis- terial crisis. He began by a kind of panegyric on Lord Randolph Churchill, which has even been interpreted as suggesting that Mr. Chamberlain looks forward to a time when Lord Randolph and himself may belong to the same Administration ; but that interpretation, of course, is all matter of inference. The public
makes mistakes about Lord Randolph, he said. "I have never failed to do justice to his courage, to his energy, to his resource, to his extraordinary ability, and to his quick appreciation of public sentiment." He did not add, as he might have done, that this "quick appreciation of public sentiment " seems to be all the quicker for its entire independence of any trace of private principle. Mr. Chamberlain noted Lord Randolph's inclination to give a Local Government Bill for the country in every respect as popular as the municipal freedom accorded to the incorporated towns ; recalled his sympathy with the cause of free education, his with to get rid of Dublin Castle, and to decentralise the government of Ireland. As, therefore, Lord Randolph had resigned, Mr. Chamberlain was prepared to find that it was not merely on account of his disapproval of ex- travagant Army and Navy Estimates, but also on account of his dislike to the narrow Conservatism which animated the Government measures on other subjects.
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