The speaking on both sides of the great political issue
of the day outruns so vastly the needs of the reading public, that it can only be justified at all on the ground that the great mass of the electors do not read, and are only influenced by audible repetitions of what has been said thousands of times already. Sir George Trevelyan has this week contributed largely to this vocalisation of the Home-rulers' case, as well as attacks on the limitations in the Household Suffrage Act of 1885, for which he was himself ministerially responsible, and on the Established Church in Wales. His first speech was delivered at Bangor yesterday week, when he made the very remarkable aseer- tion,—repeated subsequently in still stronger terms,—that he never knew the time "when there was such a dead set made against Liberalism as at the present moment. By means of articles in newspapers and gossip in society, men are being frightened out of the Liberal ranks." What kind of men, we wonder P They must be hardly worthy of the name of men. We should have supposed that the "dead set" against the Liberal Unionists was a great deal more vehement; yet we never beard of a Liberal Unionist who whined about the " articles in newspapers and gossip in political society " which were frightening him out of the Liberal Unionist ranks. Surely any man with the heart of a sparrow can bear the not very eerions amount of persecution which is involved in fidelity to his own convictions, without lamenting the dead set made at him and his allies. Again, Sir George said, in the same speech, that " the tone of the Government now towards the representatives of Ireland is that of stupid and bitter insult." We do not remember anything that could be so called; but what is the tone of the Parnellite representatives of Ireland towards the Government ? "Stupid and bitter insult" falls far short of the driest and most accurate description of it.
