In his political speech on the same evening in St.
Andrew's Hall, Mr. Gladstone reviewed the whole case against the present Government with more fire and condensation than in any of his former speeches. He showed that in the precedents recently cited of a Parliament running for seven sessions, one of the so-called sessions has been a mere fragment of a session, while the present Government, though well aware how greatly a favourable decision by the Constituencies would strengthen them, yet give out that they intend the present Parliament to complete its seventh full session and half even of its seventh year, before they dissolve,—the explanation being, of COMO, that they fear condemnation by the people. He elicited great' laughter, by referring to a despatch, quoted by Conservative papers, in which Turkey treats Turkish reforms as essential chiefly to the safety of the Beaconsfield Cabinet, and con- descendingly promises them on that ground. He criticised the reasons assigned for seizing Cyprus, and showed that the pro- mises given to make its harbour a great naval harbour, and its soil a strong "place of arms," were all unreal, of which we hear nothing now. He discussed also at length our policy in India, which he condemned, as wholly false to the purposes for which we rule in India ; and maintained that to call the policy of the Government "Conservative," was to call it by the name most opposite to its distinctive quality, which is its subversiveness of all great English traditions.
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