Mr. John Morley addressed a great Gladstonian meeting at Huddersfield
last Saturday, which he endeavoured to stimulate to vehement scorn for the popular tendencies of the new Tories, and to persuade them that the modern Tories elected by household suffrage are just as deadly enemies to the people as were the old Tories of the beginning and middle of the century. If that were so,—which of course it is not,— what would have been the use, we should like to know, of the change of suffrage ? But though Mr. Morley tried very hard to believe his own doctrine, we do not think that he succeeded. "I charge the Tory Party," he said, "with having a mere programme of negation." Well, whatever that awful accusa- tion may mean, and it does not mean much, it is consistent with their having carried in the last six years a far more important series of popular measures than Mr. Gladstone carried in the previous five years. "We proposed Parish Councils which would enable the labourers of our villages, neglected, downtrodden men, to have a voice in their own affairs, and to give them a true citizenship. The Tories say, We won't ; we will give them circuses." The Tories never said anything of the kind ; they s'aid, "We will give them District Councils ;" and Mr. Gladstone himself admitted that the Parochial Councils could not possibly be trusted with the duty of providing their own financial resources ; in other
words, could not be trusted to carry out their own wishes, which is a complete admission of the solidity of the Conservative objection to Parochial Councils. Then, said Mr. Morley, the Tories will not equalise the death-duties on land and on personal property, and the Gladstonians will. Well, as a matter of fact, they did not when they might. The Tories have made a step in that direction by putting on the Estate-duty, which is more than the Gladstonians ever did.
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