We cannot summarise any more of the correspondence ; but
we do not believe that any ordinary man will read it without profound bewilderment that a man like Lord Stanley should have allowed himself to be bullied out of his pledge. We can understand Lord Stanley feeling that he had been rash and foolish, and bitterly regretting his action; but up till Friday we should have been prepared to assert that it was quite impossible that Lord gtanley could deliberately repudiate his pledge, although no event subsequent to the giving of that pledge had altered its basis.—No member of the Administration can allege that he did not realise when he gave his promise that Mr. Bowles had been a hostile, or even bitter, critic of the Government in the past.—The pressure put upon Lord Stanley was of course tremendous, but surely Lord Stanley should have said : Well, let the conse- quences be what they will, I have given my word, and I have got to keep it. I may have got into a mess, but I shall be in an infinitely worse one if I repudiate a pledge deliberately given.' Was it not an ancestress of Lord Stanley who said, when she was told by a politician to return his nominee for one of her boroughs : "I have been deserted by a King; I have been oppressed by a usurper; but I won't be bullied by a place-man. Your man sha'n't stand" ?
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