The Solicitor-General (Sir Farrer Herschell), in attending a meeting of
the Egham Branch of the West Surrey Liberal Asso- ciation, last Tuesday, held for the purpose of promoting the can- didature of Mr. St. George Lane-Fox as a Liberal representative of West Surrey, delivered a very masterly and impressive speech on the claims of the Government on the confidence of the country, and the difficulties with which they had had to deal, which he exhibited with extraordinary force. In speaking of the Rules of Procedure, he made the statement that while the House of Commons of 1874-1880 had only discussed the various Addresses in answer to the various Queen's Speeches during eleven nights,. distributed over all its seven Sessions, there were eleven nights consumed in the debate on the Address of the Session of 1882 takea alone; and while declaring his firm belief that the Liberal Party never could afford to burke discussion, if only because it feels too much pride in the superiority of its own reasons, Sir Farrer Herschell assured his audience that the Liberals will necessarily care more than the Conservatives to put a limit to verbal discussion, because they desire action, while the Conservatives may often prefer empty words. He also made a very powerful reply to those who say that the British Government of Mr. Gladstone is impotent and wholly without diplomatic influence in Europe, at the very moment when they assert that its first achievement was to get all the Naval Powers to join in a demonstration against Turkey in the Adriatic, which they declare to have been ridiculous and almost idiotic. When, said Sir Farrer Herschel', did any Government give such a proof of influence yet, as to persuade all the other great Powers to join with it in an act of confessedly ridiculous folly ? If the British Government, immediately on its accession to power, had the influence to effect so much as that, it must have exerted influence almost unparalleled in the history of -diplomacy.
Previous page
