At Hull yesterday week, Mr. John Morley made a very
bitter speech, in which he charged the Chancellor of the Exchequer with hitting "below the belt" when he said that the obstruc- tion during the last Session had prevented the Government from passing the Railway Rates Bill and the Technical Edina- tion Bill. Mr. Morley said, justly enough, that neither Bill had been obstructed by Irish Members, which was quite true, and that the latter Bill had been chiefly objected to and delayed by the amendments of Conservative Members, which, again, we believe to be quite true. But Mr. Goschen never said anything that would in the least have suggested that with regard to either of these Bills the Irish Members had raised difficulties. What he said was that they had wasted snob a vast number of nights, that there was not time at the end of the Session to get through either of these Bills; and no Mr. Morley had understood him, for he retorted that where, as in the case of the Scottish Technical Education Bill, no objections were raised, there was still time to pass such a Bill. Of course ; but that does not show that where substantial points were in dispute, there was time for discussion. Indeed, as he well knows, there was not. And to charge Mr. Goschen with suggesting false accusations against the Irish, when he did not suggest anything of the kind, was itself more like "hitting below the belt" than anything which could be brought home to Mr. Goschen.
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