Lord Clarendon spoke at Watford on Monday, also at a
meeting of an Agricultural Association, and also in a generally Conserva- tive sense. He defended the House of Lords for its apathy, on the ground that it had an excellent habit of saying nothing when it had nothing to say,— a modest habit, no doubt, but modesty hardly makes a statesman, and the precise charge against the House of Lords is, that, excepting some twenty or thirty men, the Peers have nothing to say on so many great subjects, caring, in fact, little or nothing about them. To be empty-minded and silent is better than to be empty-minded and loquacious ; but statesmen are neither empty-minded nor silent ; they have thoughts, and they express them. Lord Clarendon went on to admit that the House of Lords wanted " steam" ; but be did not define political steam, or say from what boiler the House of Lords is to derive it. On the Irish land question, Lord Clarendon called for a measure on which there should be no display of party spirit, by which, of course, he means a measure on which Conservative landowners and Liberal landowners should vote together. He denounced the " felonious " appropriation of the property of tenants-at-will by Irish landlords who turn out their tenants without strict payment for the improvement, but deprecated the notion that such practices were common. He still further de- nounced the exciting of extravagant expectations in the minds of the Irish people, and warmly denied that those who sowed those expectations are the friends of Ireland. Lord Clarendon ended an effective Liberal-Conservative speech by promising us a good spell of peace. Having been on the Continent and seen "some persons who exercise no little influence over the destinies of Europe," he could say with confidence that since the conclusion of the Prussian and Austrian war in 1866, Europe had "never had a fairer prospect of maintaining the inestimable blessings of peace." It hardly needed a foreign minister to tell us that ; but we are well satisfied to know that persons who "exercise no little influence over the destinies of Europe," acquiesce in that very sober and sensible opinion.
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