On Monday there appeared a letter from the Prime Minister
to the electors of Midlothian, which in popular effectiveness, perhaps, surpasses any one of his written addresses, but which, to our great regret, displays more of the tone and the spirit of the demagogue,—that is, of the agitator who prefers catching phrases to the logic of facts,—than we supposed it possible for the great Minister to exhibit. We have spoken of it at such length in another column, that we need give but a very brief summary here. Mr. Gladstone lays great stress on the fact that the fame of the Irish measures of the Government has "rung throughout the world;" that that vast British and Irish public, which already numbers more than one hundred millions, and which spreads with unabated rapidity from year to year, have greeted these measures with a burst of sympathy. He thinks Liberal secessions from the Liberal Party have always proved to be in the wrong,—Lord Selborne has since reminded him that he did not think so as to that Liberal secession from the Liberal Party which resisted the demand for an Ecclesi- astical Titles Bill, and which eventually obtained its repeal,— and that the Liberal seceders are so disunited among themselves as to remind us of the confusions of the builders of Babel.
