Lord Salisbury made a striking speech on Tuesday at Her
Majesty's Theatre to the Primrose League, in which he said that it now numbers 800,000 members, and that it has done wonders towards diffusing Conservative principles through the United Kingdom, including Ireland, in which it is now making great progress. He passed over, of course, the more dubious methods of the Primrose League, such as social flatteries and social intimidations, and insisted only on the vast good done by bringing the various classes into closer political communication with each other, and so cultivating a genuinely national and mutually friendly feeling amongst those classes. The pride in the British Empire which had been so fostered is, in Lord Salisbury's belief, the source of the strong feeling exhibited for the Naval Defence Bill, and of the steadily growing determination to sup- port the Union. We trust that he is right. But we should like to see Primrose Dames abjuring all wish to interfere with the free use of the vote, and steadily discountenancing that application of pressure to tradesmen which is analagous to the boycotting that we are all so earnestly condemning in Ireland. Till that is done, the " Primrose " will hardly be a popular political flower with the Liberal Unionists.
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