One feature of the deputations was very remarkable,— namely, the
protestations of confidence in Lord Salisbury as the statesman who, of all others, would most feel the duty of restoring order. We hope he may, and will give him our hearty support if he 'does. But certainly it is Lord Salisbury whose unscrupulous abandonment of his own principles has brought about the present state of anarchy. If he had not allowed Lord Randolph Churchill to intrigue for the Parnellite vote by the surrender of the renewal of the Crimes Act, we should not be where we are now in Ireland. The Conservative coalition
with Mr. Parnell in the summer is the true cause of all the miseries described by the deputations on Tuesday ; and yet almost all the speakers were eloquent in their praise of Lord Salisbury, and their confidence in him,—a confidence founded apparently on the most barefaced dereliction of principle of which the political history of the century shows us any trace. However, "it is never too late to mend," and we hope the mending is about to begin.
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