Sir Charles Dilke delivered a remarkable speech to his Chelsea
constituents on Tuesday, after the police had suppressed a din. graceful Irish attempt to break up the meeting by violence. We have reviewed the main points of the speech elsewhere, but may add here that Sir Charles Mike demonstrated the absurdity of the assertion that the Act of 1878, which gave the household franchise to the tenants of unfurnished apartments where the landlord does not reside on the premises, had constituted either a "surreptitious revolution," or a surprise on Parliament. The Conservatives had eagerly adopted Sir Charles Dilke's Bill, and Lord Cairns had pronounced a panegyric upon it in the House of Lords. On foreign policy, Sir Charles showed that Austria had cordially approved the settlement of the Monte- negro question by the threat of the occupation of Smyrna ; and that that settlement, so far from having imposed a Government on the Albanians to which they were bitterly hostile, had secured for the leader of the Albanian League a hospitable shelter under Montenegrin rule, after his escape from the forces of the Sultan. Greece had received peacefully an accession of territory almost as large as that which Germany gained by her great war with France,—and, in short, foreign affairs had been so well managed by the present Government that most of the leaders of the Tory party now turn scornfully away from foreign affairs, to discuss subjects on which they think they can make a better score. Sir Charles Dilke showed that the ground which the Tories abandon, they abandon because it is too strong for attack.
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