In spite of the severe snubbing which Lord Randolph Churchill
received from Sir Stafford Northcote yesterday week, his Jack-in-the-box elasticity displayed itself in a speech at Chatham, to Mr. Gorst's constituency, last Wednesday, a speech in which he said most truly that, "if all the Conservative Members were as active as Mr. Gorst, the Government would not have such an easy task as they now have in ruling the country." if all the Conservative Members were as active as Mr. Gorst, the only possibility of ruling the country at all would be to follow in Cromwell's steps, and "take away that bauble" before the Speaker's chair. Lord Randolph, who showed his statesmanship by proposing to reduce the Army, to cat £5,000,000 off the estimates for the Civil Service, and either to abandon Egypt or to annex it, professed to be in great difficulty as to the meaning of 'veiled obstruction.' The meaning isvery simple. The veiled obstruction of the Conservative party consists in this,—that it throws its veil over the obstruction of Lord Randolph Churchill, Mr. Gorst, Mr. Ashmead-Bartlett, Mr. Warton, and the rest of the Conservative Obstructives. But since Sir Stafford Northcote's " Thermopylas " speech, it can hardly be called " veiled " obstruction any longer. That speech openly exulted in Conservative obstruction, and if that speech is to bear fruit, open obstruction it will become.
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