Sir Stafford Northcote on Wednesday delivered two speeches at Glasgow.
The first, to the Tory caucus there, called locally the "National Union of Conservative Associations," dwelt on the advantages of organisation; and the second dealt with general politics. He acknowledged that the Government had been rendered popular by the Egyptian war, and was now "riding on the top of the wave," but held that the war had been created by Liberal folly, in not putting down Arabi at an earlier period. "Mr. Gladstone was travelling along with such velocity, that he every now and then turned a corner and shot off a colleague," and the people would therefore soon doubt his driving. They would find that ho would want to pay for the war out of the taxation of the year, that his proposals on Obstruction were bad, and that he still believed in his " flimsy " remedial legislation in Ireland; whereas the peace in that country was due wholly to the drastic Crime Prevention Act, He would suggest as a motto for the Conservative banner, " Freedom,"— freedom of debate, freedom of contract, freedom of opinion. Sir Stafford's oration is con- sidered in Conservative circles meek, and no doubt he is un- luckily placed. His real oratorical talent is for minimising the apparent meaning of outrageous acts, and he has just now no opportunity for its display.
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