Lord Salisbury has made three speeches in South Wales this
week. The first was at Cardiff on Tuesday, when he remarked on the absolute necessity of reinforcing our Navy at a time when other nations are so greatly increasing theirs, and when the magnitude of their national preparations are so great that no one knows what would be the result of any mischance by which the rulers of Europe—certainly as averse to war as we ourselves are—might be plunged without any wish of their own into a great struggle. He asked the people of Cardiff to realise what it would mean if a foreign Power got command of the Bristol Channel, and levied a great One on the richer towns in that Channel as the ransom of those towns from de- struction. As to the political enterprises on which the Govern- ment are now engaged, Lord Salisbury said that it reminded him of certain horse-breeders who break in colts by galloping them about a ploughed field. "I think it is something on that principle that Mr. Gladstone is subjugating the House of Commons. Or it is like the punishment of prisoners who have to work at a crank, knowing well that nothing will come of their exertions." Probably this sort of experimental policy expressed Mr. Gladstone's profound perplexity as to what it would be wise for his Liberal majority to do. As to Home- rule, Lord Salisbury asked whether, supposing Mr. Gladstone departed on a tour to Patagonia, any of his colleagues would so much as touch Home-rule with the tongs ? Well, we must say, in answer to that, tbat if Mr. John Morley, Mr. George Lefevre, Sir George Trevelyan, and Mr. Asquith re- fused to touch Home-rule with the tongs, we cannot help think- ing that the Irish Home-rulers would touch them with the tongs, much as St. Dunstan is said to have touched the Devil who visited him in his cell at Glastonbury, and perhaps with no less damaging results.
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