Mr. Balfour made a very vigorous speech at Stalybridge this
day week,—the kind of speech which gives us the im- pression that the old sturdy race of statesmen who ignore sentiment where the present generation is wont to pay a very exaggerated deference to it, still survives in him. He said that he held to Conservative principles in the same sense in which the people of the United States may be truly said to be the most Conservative people on earth,— the sense, that is, in which to be Conservative means to cling tenaciously to the institutions inherited from our forefathers. The Unionist Government, he declared, were fattening on the prophecies which have been fulminated against them. Mr. Goschen has had the greatest success of all modern financiers. Mr. Ritchie's Local Government Bill has been received with the utmost favour, and has shown on how large a scale the plans of the Government have been con- ceived. Mr. Balfour mentioned an attack made upon him by the Stalybridge Radical Association, who had informed him in what abhorrence they held his government of Ireland, and he asked them, therefore, in what abhorrence they held the Irish government of Lord Spencer and Mr. Gladstone. The great attack made upon the present Irish government is for what are called the " ne*" crimes created by the Criminal Law Amend- ment Act. Now, during the first five months of the duration of that Act, the munber of persons proceeded against for the
" new " offences created by that Act were 44, whereas the number of the " new " offenders proceeded against under the Crimes Act of 1882,—namely, the persons found out at night under Suspicious circumstances,—were, in the first five months of that Act, no fewer than 500. How much more ahhorrence, then, should the Stalybridge Radical Association feel for the Irish administration of Mr. Gladstone and Lord Spencer !
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