Mr. Gladstone has declined to preside at the proposed meeting
of working-men at St. James's Hall, and in doing so observed, in relation to the "notice bestowed upon him by the Prime Minister in his speech at Aylesbury," that "Lord Beaconsfield's remarks were of such a nature that they ought to be allowed to stand or fall on their own merits." This is a wise decision ; but we must say we do not think that the country ought to be as in- different to that speech as the statesmen so extravagantly and indecorously attacked in it are and ought to be. The habit of shrugging our shoulders and crying it is "only Dizzy" may be carried too far, when the person in question is Prime Minister, and commits the whole country by every word he utters. The speech at Aylesbury was one which recklessly challenged, and ought to have at once elicited, a grave and resolute expression of the nation's displeasure and disgust. Yet, either through the indecision and astonishment of the people, or their habitual tolerance of the great mountebank's political freaks, such an expression of indig- nation and disgust has certainly not as yet been drawn forth. The blow appears to have stunned the English people, who are not accustomed to receive such 'punishment' at the hands of the Queen's First Minister.
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