Mr. Lowther, who has been made Secretary for Ireland, and
has consequently applied to his constituents at York for re-elec- tion, is apparently very anxious to earn the reputation of being as cynical, as bounceable, and as incapable of a statesmanlike view of the Eastern Question as the wildest of Irish fire-eaters might desire. lie described the agitation which resulted from the Bulgarian atrocities as " the most contemptible ever started." He talked of " the insupportable load of moral guilt " which must be weighing on the leaders of that agitation, "the result of which he had no hesitation in saying was war." He declared that the Russian war was one of " aggression," " waged on hypocritical pretences." Still he would not deny that Russia was a Power which " had its uses in the world." He even thought it would be a calamity "to remove so great an influence for weal or woe from the body politic of nations," —a course which, since Mr. Lowther magnanimously deprecates it, is evidently under serious contemplation in some very high quarter. Finally, he said that if England were called upon, she would show that she had not forgotten how to fight. And this is the Speech of the new Irish Secretary ! If he were to tell Irishmen that the agitation for Catholic emancipation was truly con- temptible,—that the disestablishment of the Irish Church was a mere war of aggression, "waged on hypocritical pretences," —but that nevertheless he is not prepared wholly to abolish Ireland, or to deny that it has its uses in the world, he would say what is not at all more cynical or irrational, and a good deal less bizarre. Probably, however, both York and Lord Beaconsfield prefer fractious nonsense of this kind, to English common-sense.
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