Lord Randolph Churchill broke out very violently against the Government,
at a Conservative meeting held at Portsmouth on Thursday night. We have said enough of the chief lines of his speech elsewhere, but may add here, that besides launching at Lord Sherbrooke a taunt which we should hardly have looked for from any gentleman, he made it a great point against what he called the Radical Government, that it had put forth all its strength "to seat on the benches of the historical House of Commons an avowed atheist, and a professed apostle of the most hideous immorality that had ever been preached in England." It is hardly necessary to say that the Government did nothing of the kind. What it did was to prevent the virtual disfranchisement of a great constituency by a side-wind, with- out any relation to the character of the Member elected, with which the Reuse of Commons has no• more to do than it has with the character of members of the House of Lords. Lord Randolph Churchill might as fairly be accused of using all his strength to obtain a hearing for a libel on the French Ambassador in the House of Commons, as Mr. Gladstone's Government be accused of using all its strength to seat an atheist in the House of Commons. Lord Randolph Churchill does not stick at a suggestio falai.
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