We verily believe that if Sir John Pakington were asked
to deliver an address on spectrum analysis, the delight of speech- making would get the better of him, and he would utter enough words to fill a column of the Times. He can speak sometimes, but of late he has dilated his thoughts with words till all the former are held in solution, and to any but experts are invisible. We have read carefully a long speech of his delivered at Stourbridge on Monday, and have found but a single new thought, and that is a metaphor all topsy-turvy. "It was a well-known principle," he said, "in mechanics that the strength of any machine was only equal to the strength of its weakest part, and the policy of Her Majesty's Government was much too prone to be biassed by the policy of the lowest section of their supporters, on which they were compelled to rely for support, and without which they could not carry on the government of the country." The Radical therefore is at once the weakest and the strongest section in the Liberal chain, and Her Majesty's Government because it is weakest rely on it the most. In the same speech, Sir John affirmed that the Liberals moved on, but passed democratic measures, while the Conserva- tives improved things without trying to conciliate democratic sup- port. Is that, perchance, the reason why Sir John voted for, and Mr. Disraeli carried, household suffrage ?
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