Mr. John Morley made a speech on Monday in Cork
at a banquet given to him by the Incorporated Chamber of Com- merce and Shipping. A poster, demanding the fulfilment of Mr. Morley's virtual promise to get the Irish political prisoners amnestied, had been posted about the town. But Mr. Morley made no reference to it either in his reply to the toast of his beahh,—which was not a political speech, but dealt chiefly with the Irish "boons" which the commercial magnates of the country demand,—or in the little speech at the railway-station, when he was received by two crowds, one Anti-Pamellite and congratulatory, the other, Parnellite and hostile. The only important sentence that he uttered was the declaration that he had nailed his colours to the mast,—meaning, of course, his Irish colours,—and did not intend to desert them, an assertion on which the Anti-Parnellites have been sustain- ing their hope ever since they heard of the impending resig- nation of Mr. Gladstone. Yet nobody else can do for the party what Mr. Gladstone has done. There is some vague talk as to the appointment of Mr. Morley to some higher post in the next Ministry, and replacing hint in Ireland by Mr. Herbert Glad- stone. We should much doubt its being a good appointment, though if actually determined on, it might give the Irish party the satisfaction of the magni nominis umbra.
Previous page
