We fear that Sir George Trevelyan can no longer be
counted on as a Unionist in any effective sense. In Tuesday's papers, a letter was published from him to the Aberdeen Unionist Liberal Committee, in which he is said to have expressed his opinion,—the words are not given,—that the Irish Question must be dealt with promptly, thoroughly, radically, and reme- dially, and that it could only be so dealt with by a reunited Liberal Party, and that for a reunion on terms honourable to all concerned, he believed the moment to be ripe. In presiding at a House dinner of the Devonshire Club on Wednesday, he is reported,—though formal reporters were not present,—as making declarations still stronger in the same sense, and as having delivered a sharp attack on the Government. Sir George Trevelyan is, as he has himself recently admitted, an idolater of the Liberal Party ; and this idolatry is leading him, and, we fear, others, into a course of action which will seriously injure that party with the country, and ruin it as an instrument for pro- moting wise and sober progress. We never knew any good come of idolatry yet, and we have known floods of evil come of it. And certainly the least happy moment which can bo chosen for idolising a popular party is the moment when the Conservative Party has reconstituted itself on a popular basis, which will compel it to do in a very considerable degree the work of which the Liberals had formerly a monopoly, but of which they now have a monopoly no longer.
