Mr. Balfour addressed an enthusiastic meeting of over four thousand
persons at Leicester last Saturday, in the Royal Opera House, and expressed his hope that the Unionists might capture that ultra-Radical borough from the degenerate• Radicalism by which it is now overridden. The old Radicalism, he said, did at least believe firmly in freedom, and especially freedom of discussion ; but the new Radicalism believes in silencing its opponents, even on all-important constitu- tional questions, by the use of the gag. He did not deny that the Gladstonians have hitherto held well together, bound partly "by hopes which are not likely to be fulfilled," and partly " by fears which are ever imminent and persistent." But Sir William Harcourt had compared himself and his colleagues to persons in a balloon, and "the party by which it is supported to the gas which is gradually lifting the balloon into the higher regions." Mr. Balfour thought the simile an apt one. A balloon is "an instrument of progression which moves in cold and damp regions far above the surface of the earth, and is incapable of being steered." "It is affected by every passing breath that blows, and after being wafted about hither and thither, quite irrespective of the wish of its occupants, it finally comes down with a lump." That, he thought, would be the fate of the Government.
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