The Duke of Rutland, a somewhat eccentric speaker, seems to
have made both a sensible and very good-humoured speech at Derby, on Wednesday, at an annual dinner of the Agricultural and Horticul- tural Sociey. He defended the strong application of the Privy Coun- cil's regulations to prevent the importation of cattle from infected places during a time of cattle plague, against the charges of the working-man that they are selfish interferences with the food of the people in the interest of the privileged class of cattle-owners, by showing that in the years of highest import we do not import more than about 2 per cent. of our home stock, and, therefore, that any disease affecting only 2 per cent. of our home cattle would injure the food of the people much more than the exclusion even of the whole of our imports. The Duke in the same speech, while expressing his sympathy for Mr. Bright in his late illness, and hoping for his complete restoration to health, went on to charge him with not knowing how to treat his adversaries in bygone conflicts, quoting, by wayof illustration, Mr. Bright's some- what bitter onslaught on the Protectionists, when recently receiving bis testimonial from the Potteries. There was justice in this, for Mr. Bright does wield too freely the sword of the Lord and of Gideon against foes already scattered as dust before the wind ; but the Duke must have intended to provoke Mr. Bright to a fresh outbreak when he instanced the protectionism of Republi- can France and Republican America as a proof that the masses of the people take up the principles of those aristocratic classes who were supposed to be defending only their own privileges. No doubt they do, but it is new and amusing to find a Duke gravely sheltering himself and his order behind the economical follies of an ignorant democracy.
Previous page
