Mr. Goschen made a very powerful speech at the Alexandra
Palace last Saturday, to the Metropolitan Union of Conserva- tive and Constitutional Associations, which reads now as if the speaker had been to some extent overruled by his colleagues since the time at which he delivered it. The Govern- ment, he said, had refused a general revision of judicial rents, such as Mr. John Morley had asked for, considering it incompatible with that permanency which should characterise the purchase they wished to promote. If the idea that rents ought to fall with falling prices were to be generally adopted in Ireland, the tenants would never adapt themselves to the system of proprietorship at all, for that implies that they are to take the lose of falling prices as well as the gain of rising prices. It was, however, quite false to say that the Government intended to found their Purchase Bill on a value of land which no longer exists, and which would be unfair to the tenants. On the contrary, they had declared again and again that they intended to have a revaluation of the land as the basis of their system of purchase. The Government were charged with being a mere landlords' Government. Nothing could be falser. If they were, Liverpool, Manchester, and Birmingham, which know little of landlords, would not support them as they do.
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