A hundred years ago
Front the 'Spectator', 30 January I869—Mr Lowe made two speeches at a Liberal banquet at Gloucester on Wednesday. The first we have analyzed elsewhere, the second, made when pro- posing "The Liberal Party," contained a scathing attack on Mr. Disraeli and the Tories. Mr. Dis- raeli, he said, has had the satisfaction "of throwing aside every principle that be and his party have ever professed, of burning everything that they adored, and of adoring everything that they would have burnt, in order to prepare for him and them the most complete and calamitous defeat that any party ever sustained in this country—a defeat which, if I don't mistake, is fatal not only to the immediate destinies, but to the future of his party." The Tories have three times come in in a minority, and have each time been lavish of the public money in jobs and contracts to pur- chase support, "till they have come to look on office as so many shops in which they could sell their principles to the highest bidder." The injury done to public morality by allowing Tories to come in far more than counterbalances any good that can be derived from passing the measures they have resisted. Till the Tories recover from their "profound demoralization," no good Englishman can wish to see them in power. What with one thing and another, Mr. Lowe will have a lively time of it next session.
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