At the Dolphin dinner Sir Michael Hicks-Beach made, as usual,
a very bitter attack on Mr. Gladstone and his Government, repre- senting him as unworthily evading the declaration of his own views on Disestablishment ; and Sir Michael declared that while the old Liberalism was dying, if not dead, the new Liberalism was the Birmingham gospel, which he described as the sanction of "corporate and individual plunder." "The Conservatives," on the other hand, said Sir Michael, " looked to their duty alone ;" and he hoped that they would be judged by deeds, not by words. We hope so too. It is an odd way of looking to your duty alone, as a Conservative, to secure allies like the Parnellites, and then to suppress, throughout a whole election campaign, every word relating to Ireland which would be at all likely to alienate the most revolutionary body of men con- tained within the walls of Parliament. The electors of West Bristol should weigh very carefully next Wednesday Sir Michael Hicks-Beach's "deeds," and his conception of the solemn obligations of "duty alone," before they decide between his claims and the claims of Mr. Nixon.
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