Sir William Harcourt made a very telling speech at Derby
on Tuesday, on the present state of parties. He pointed out that there were absolutely no personalities of Mr. Gladstone's own in the great Midlothian campaign to excuse or justify the personalities now levelled at him, especially by Lord Salisbury ; that Lord Beaconsfield had been challenged to produce such personalities, that a Private Secretary was set to work to look them up, and that they never were looked up because they did not exist. He proved that the whole of the Irish legislation had been conceived in defence of property, and not as an attack on property ; and he laughed at Lord Salisbury's Committee on the Land Act, which, he said, is, no doubt, perfectly harmless, but why F because, just as in the case of the venomous snakes of the Indian snake-charmers, its fangs had been extracted by Mr. Gladstone's resolution. He regarded Lord Salisbury's doctrine that the House of Lords should not pay so much respect as it has done of late years to the votes of the House of Commons, as a new policy of " thorough,"—a happy combination of "the wisdom of Charles I. with the moderation of the Earl of Strafford." Finally, quoting from a remarkable speech of Sir Robert Peel's in 1811, he showed how vastly more commanding, or, in the degenerate phraseology of the present day, " dictatorial," a great Minister could be then, and that, too, without exciting a word of protest, than Mr. Gladstone,—so often denounced as an unscrupu- lous dictator,—would ever think of being now. Sir William Har- court's speech is the weightiest he has yet made, and certainly not the least witty.
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