In his Saturday's speech at Dundee, Mr. Goschen, who was
introduced to the meeting as the new Lord Rector of Edin- burgh University, replied to the taunts brought against the Government for not bringing in its promised Bill for local government in Ireland, by reminding Mr. Gladstone that, in the Queen's Speech of 1881, he himself had promised a Bill for establishing county government in Ireland; and that, though he remained in office till 1885, he never gave effect to that promise. In fact, the present Government had re- deemed all the promises of Mr. Gladstone's Government in relation to those local bodies which had been redeemed at all, and the promise to Ireland would also be redeemed, though the solution of the land problem must necessarily take pre- cedence of it, since it is quite necessary to re-establish order on a firm basis before local government can be safely estab- lished. Mr. Goschen maintained, and, as we think, positively proved in this speech, that this Government, so far from having been "reactionary," had done more for the develop- ment of democratic institutions than any Liberal Government of recent times.
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