At Inverness, the Duke of Richmond and Gordon, assuming his
position as a great Scotch proprietor and politician, welcomed Sir Stafford Northcote to Scotland, to inaugurate "The Consti- tutional Association of the Northern Counties." The Duke attributed the defeat of 1880 to "the violent attacks which were made, without the slightest provocation, by our opponents," the proof being that the Liberals were willing and anxious, directly they came into power themselves, to imitate the policy which they had previously denounced. The campaign in Egypt had been brilliant, but would have been unnecessary but. for the deliberate " dawdling " of the Foreign Office, and the Duke feared that the same dawdling now might re- sult in throwing away the fruits of our victory. Ireland had been treated with coercion and bribery, and the Arrears Bill ought to be called "A Bill for Taxing the People of England and Scotland to Relieve the Fraudulent Tenants of Ireland." If that were so, why did not the Duke 'of Richmond and Gordon side with Lord Salisbury in voting its rejection, and risk even the House of Peers itself on the side of upright- ness and justice P Finally, he described Sir Stafford Northcote. as a man of great decision and energy of character, but so. courteous as to bring out all the opinions of his party adequately before taking his own stand,—an estimate which we should call one so decidedly (let us say) idealised, as to miss even rhetorical effectiveness.
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