Mr. Grant Duff made at Peterhead on Monday one of
that brilliant series of speeches which, if collected, would constitute a most epigrammatic Liberal comment on the politics of the last twenty years. -Ile gave a very high estimate indeed of the restrained ability in the present House of Commons, though he admitted that during the last Session it had showed that ability chiefly in self-restraint. He christened Lord Randolph Churchill's party "The Mohocks." He distinguished the " Fadicals " from the Radicals, as Liberals who chose to attach excessive importance to some petty Liberal crotchet of their own, though on all other points they were moderate enough. Reviewing the Treaty of Berlin in a very contemptuous spirit as a vast imposture," Mr. Grant Duff pointed out that by way of concession to their fellow-countrymen, the Plenipo- tentiaries of England bad been obliged to introduce clauses practically dead-letters so long as Tories remained in power, but none the less useful clauses if really restored to life; and that to restore them to life was the first duty of this Government in relation to the politics of the East. To all these efforts the answer of Turkey was" To-morrow," and, said Mr. Grant Duff, there never was a truer proverb than the Spanish one, "By the gate of 'To-morrow' you arrive at the house of 'Never.'" By properly availing themselves of the concert of Europe, the present Government bad succeeded in substituting for at least one of Turkey's "to-morrows," a "to-day."
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