Mr. Asquith, the Home Secretary, spoke at the City Liberal
Club dinner on Wednesday in reply to a speech from the Chairman, Sir Arthur Hayter, wherein it was stated that if Mr. Asquith had been but a short time in the House of Commons, and had consequently attempted little, there was nothing in which he had not succeeded. There Sir Arthur Hayt,er was inaccurate. Luckily for Mr. Asquith, he did not succeed in passing Mr. Haldane's astonishing little Bill for tying up municipal land for twenty years, last Session ; and no doubt Mr. Asquith is duly grateful for his escape from that wild and wayward legislative project. In his own speech, Mr. Asquith tried to put a cheerful face on the political aspect of things, but he did not give the effect of any very deep-rooted hopefulness. He dwelt on the duty of re- deeming the promises of the Government to the country, both in relation to Ireland and in relation to the further development of Parliamentary and municipal reform in England; and he also dwelt on the duty of compromise. There is the hitch. What compromise will satisfy or even stop the mouths at once of Mr. Labouchere and the Radicals, of the Welsh Dis. establishers, of the Labour party, and of the party which is for equalising the electoral power of different electors, but not of different groups of electors ? Compromise, as Mr. John Morley has pointed out, is one of the most doubtful and diffi- cult of all political manceuvres, and the necessity for com- promise which weighs upon the present Government is overwhelming.
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