On the same day, Sir William Harcourt addressed a great
meeting in Stoneleigh Park, Warwickshire, accusing the Government of being determined that the Irish Members should not have fair play in relation to the Judicial Commis- sion proposed, and the Liberal Unionists of being guilty of " the incredible meanness " of offering this Commission to the Irish Members in order that they might clear their characters, and of having laboured ever since " to prevent its being used for that purpose." All we can say is that Sir William Harcourt must have an extraordinarily bad opinion of Sir James Hannen, Mr. Justice Day, and Mr. Justice A. L. Smith. All that the Liberal Unionists have laboured for, is to give these gentlemen a free hand in the inquiry ; and if they are unjust Judges, then, and only then, will the inquiry be perverted to unjust ends, Sir W. Harcourt was very furious with the Times. " The single object to which the Times newspaper devotes itself is daily to invent fresh lies against those to whom its policy is opposed, and to attack their personal character ; to make false state- ments, and then to suppress the evidence which demonstrates their untruth." This is a mild specimen of Sir W. Harcourt's speech. To read such speeches gives a new and terrible meaning to the passage in the New Testament,—" By thy words shalt thou be justified, and by thy words shalt thou be condemned."
