Lord Herschel], who was the principal speaker at a meeting
of the North-West Manchester Liberal Association last Wednes- day, scored heavily by a quotation which he made from a speech of Lord Randolph Churchill's, made in Manchester only last March. Referring to theists Government, Lord Randolph said ""I learn that the Government propose enormous reductions in the Army and Navy establishment. I believe that in the Army arsenals it is contemplated to increase the number of unemployed by the immediate discharge of some thousand British workmen. Not only is that a fatal policy by the effect which it has of increasing the number of unemployed, but it is a fatal policy from a national point of view, because the state of Europe at the present moment does not admit of any reduction of British armaments. Nay, more, the state of Europe at the present moment calls rather for an increase of British arma- ments. I believe you want a large and rapid increase of the Navy. I know India requires a large increase in its Army. While you have Egypt on your hands, I defy you with common- sense, with prudence, to reduce military armaments. Yet the Government, because they have not the courage to face the passing cry of bloated armaments, care nothing for the un- employed and the depression of British industries," and so forth. And yet this is the man who, nine months later, resigned because the Army and Navy Estimates were not sufficiently reduced, and whom both Lord Salisbury and Mr. Matthews seem to wish to have back again in the Government For our own parts, he excites in us not merely distrust, but a sense -of positive danger. Lord Randolph's words not only do not express any purpose that is at all likely to last a year, but they mean nothing even for the moment beyond a conviction that if ire strikes that key, he will please his listeners' ears.
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