Lord Salisbury, after condemning the course taken by the Ministry
in the matter of the Suez Canal, which he said left not only a financial monopoly, but a political monopoly to M. Lesseps .(who does not, nevertheless, own the Cape route), de- voted the rest of his speech to the danger to property arising from Liberal legislation. He maintained that the Irish Land Act was a robbery, that it had stopped the flow of capital to Ireland and the flow of emigration out of Ireland, and that it had produced an outbreak of those doctrines which are hostile to the existence of property. "You have heard of them in Scotland ; you have heard of them in England ; you have heard of them from the months of the Ministers themselves. You have heard Sir C. Mite telling you that the whole popula- tion of this country were adverse to the rights of property. You have heard Mr. Chamberlain speaking of the owners of property as people who toil not, neither do they spin,' com- paring them therein to the lilies of the field, and bestowing upon them a compliment which, I am bound to say, they do not deserve." Mr. Chamberlain's speech we remember, though we fancy his lilies were the Peers ; but the allasion to'Sir Charles Dilke is absolutely unintelligible. Did he ever say that English- men wished to abolish punishment for theft Lord Salisbury denies that the defence of property is the only business of Tories, but obviously, when he himself looks abroad upon politics, " Proputty, proptttty, proputty, that's what he hears an say."
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