There is a growing feeling, as Liberal leader after Liberal
leader pronounces his views on our national problems, that the chances of a Liberal revival, which for a time looked possible or even -likely, are fading. Lord Oxford made his first speech as a member of the Upper House at the Manchester Reform Club on Friday, the 20th. He was as interesting and eloquent as ever. He asked his hearers to give their confidence to the party which had been right with Mackintosh, Romilly, Russell and Grey, as against Sidmouth, Castle- reagh and Liverpool ; with Cobden on the Corn Laws and with Gladstone on Home Rule. But it was with these histOrical rectitudes that his bearers had to be content. There was not enough constructive programme in his speech to maintain the fortunes of a borough council, let alone to revive the power of a great national party. It is the measure of Liberal sterility (which none regret more than we) that-Lord Oxford must tell us that no more trivial, pinchbeck or generally unimportant proposal has ever been launched than the present Government's Safeguarding of Industries Bill, and in the same speech attempt to rally his party to one supreme effort to resist this -disastrous, this catastrophic, attempt on our economic prosperity. *
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