Mr. Morley on Wednesday opened a Liberal bazaar at Darwen.
Referring in his opening speech to Mr. Bright, he told his hearers not to forget that Mr. Bright opposed the Factory Acts,—a line of attack which, curiously enough, was once the stock device of Primrose League orators. The same evening, Mr. Morley addressed a public meeting at Blackburn, and received an address from the local Branch of the National League. The speech was an excellent example of Mr. Morley's oratory at its best, and was full of happy allusions and quota- tions. For his purposes, nothing could have been more telling than the use of Lord Chatham's words in regard to the Great Rebellion :—" There was ambition, there was violence, there was sedition. But no man shall persuade me that it was not the cause of liberty on the one side, and of tyranny on the other." Yet, happy as is Mr. Morley in the use of such rhetorical artifices, his handling of practical points often lacks reality. What, for instance, could be less successful than his treatment of the riots at Mitchelstown and Ennis ? Mr. Morley's speech concluded by a studied attack upon Mr. Balfour, whom he described as "not always a very chivalrous man," and whom he represented as treating the Irish Members "with the easy contempt of a white man for the Negroes of a cotton-plantation. Their antics and their drolleries amuse him, and if they carry it too far, he knows he can always lock them up." Mr. Morley went on to apply to Mr. Balfour the lines from "The Lotus-Eaters" which describe the attitude of "the Epicurean gods of the old world" towards mankind. Of course, if this means anything—and statesmen do not address mere literary epigrams to mass meetings—it means to impute to Mr. Balfour callousness to the sufferings of Ireland and delight in inflicting penalties on the Irish leaders. No doubt Mr. Balfour can afford to let this pass ; but can we think after it that Mr. Morley is "always a very chivalrous man " ?
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