A double demonstration of Lancashire Conservatives in two separate meetings
WAS made this day week, in the Pomona Gardens, Manchester, Mr. Hugh Birley, M.P., presiding at the larger meet- ing, and Mr. James Carstin at the smaller. Both meetings appear to have lavished unbounded praise on the foreign policy of her Majesty's Government, Mr. Edward Hardcastle, M.P., commit- ting himself to the view that party conflicts should be reserved for home policy, and holding therefore—we suppose—that when the Opposition think the policy of the Government bad in inten- tion, weak in execution, and disastrous in effect, they ought only to hold their tongue, and bewail their fate in having, for the nation's sake, no choice but to acquiesce. Mr. Powell called Mr. Gladstone "the unnatural ally of Russia," which he termed "one of the most perfidious Powers in modern times "—and accused Mr. Gladstone of grossly unpatriotic conduct. Mr. Cawley thought "few things more immoral could be found in the pages of history" than the attempt of Mr. Gladstone and the Radicals to father on the Ministry of the day the Bulgarian atrocities ; and at the smaller meeting, Mr. R. W. Gamble, Q.C., accused Mr. Gladstone and Mr. Lowe of making political capital out of the sympathies of the nation, and likened them to the Cornish wreckers who delude mariners by false lights. Mr. Gamble's metaphor is a little infirm. It appears to assume that he thinks Mr. Gladstone and Mr. Lowe desire to lure the people of this country to their destruction, in order that Mr. Gladstone and Mr Lowe may steal their possessions,—which it would not, perhaps, be very easy for Mr. Gladstone and Mr. Lowe to enjoy. It would have been simpler to call them treacherous political murderers at once ; and that would also have furnished a better lesson to both Tories and Liberals on the imbecility of frantic party passion.
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