Mr. John Morley made a speech at Lord Ripon's Lincolnshire
residence, Nooton Park, this day week, in which he indulged the hope of ousting almost all the Unionists in Lincolnshire from their seats at the next Election. He attacked the Local Government Act, mainly on the ground that it is not a demo- cratic measure, since it has not organised the local govern- ment of the county on the basis of the parish. He attacked the Commission to inquire into Parnellism and Crime, and said that he would not withdraw one charge he had alleged against it, either as to its scope or its personal elements. (Perhaps his determination to retract nothing was his reason for leaving it to Mr. W. H. Smith to read to the House of Commons General Bulwer's letter concerning Mr. Justice Day.) Then he remarked, A propos of the use of the closure by the Government in passing the Commis- sion Act, that the Government were undermining the great historic Constitution of England by each practices, and yet that it would be easier to pull down and rebuild a new cathedral as stately and magnificent as the Cathedral of Lincoln, than it would be to build up again "the great fabric of freedom and wisdom" which we call the British Constitution, after it had once been destroyed.
