The Liberals held their annual dinner at Bristol on the
13th inst., and Mr. Stansfeld answered for Her Majesty's Ministers in an eloquent speech full of cheerfulness and confidence, which delighted his audience, but which had unusually little matter in it. As Secretary to the Treasury, he was, we presume, compelled to maintain an unusual reserve. He told his hearers that " he felt he was in the centre of the liberalism of the West," and that Govern- ment had great works to perform,—to "deal in a bold spirit" with the licensing question, to bring in "a large and compre- hensive" Education Bill, and a Bill on Irish tenure. He denied that Mr. Gladstone's speech at the Mansion House showed in- certitude or fear, and promised that "the same honesty, the same courage, the same mastery of principle and details" which had been shown in the Irish Church Bill would conceive and perfect the Irish Land Bill, and he expected for those qualities the same reward. Altogether the speech was an excellent one to hear, but not specially instructive to read, except as proof of the real faith the lesser Ministers have in their chief, and their genuine regard for him.
