Sir George Errington made a good speech at the Ilkeston
Conservative Association, held at Ilkeston on Monday night. He had, he said, just returned from Ireland, and he could fully confirm the statements made as to the improved and improving condition of that country. But the drift of his speech might have been specially intended to counteract Mr. Chamberlain's impatience for an Irish Local Government Bill, as expressed in Birmingham on the same evening. The success of any Local Government Act in Ireland would, he said, entirely depend on the confidence which they might be able to implant in Ireland that the present firm system of Government would continue, and not be soon upset. " There- fore, he would earnestly appeal to them not to be in too great a harry, nor force the hands of their Conservative allies. Surely the success of the future measure was far more im- portant than that it should come a little sooner or a little later." A great change for the worse had taken place in the moral tone of the Irish people within the last ten years, and this change needed to be counteracted. " Only those who had known the people of Ireland in better times,—their kindly and generous qualities and disposition,—could at all realise this deplorable change, or the criminality by which it has been
brougbt about." And yet those who had brought it about were now the accepted guides, philosophers, and friends of the Gladstonian Party.
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