A very important point made by Lord Balfour of Burleigh
in his fiscal speech in the House of Lords on Thursday week has been missed owing to the compression of the Times report. In the fuller report in the Scotsman the following passage appears : "They were now told that before a mandate could be asked for this policy there were to be two or perhaps three General Elections. He did not know whether that would be the case or not, but was that in itself not the complete and absolute justification of the line which had been taken by those who refused to allow the Government and Parliament to be com- mitted before any Election had taken place ? " In other words, the Government last spring would have done what they now say ought not to be done till after two or three Elections—i.e., have committed the country to the system of preference—if it had not been for the Free-traders in the Cabinet,—the men who during the period when Mr. Cham- berlain was thought to be going to sweep the country were denounced as unworthy to remain members of the Unionist
party, and whom, we are given to understand, Mr. Balfour regarded as such political lepers that he dared not treat them with the confidence and frankness usually extended to colleagues, lest they might revoke their resignations and continue to contaminate his Administration.
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