Mr. Stansfeld made a clever speech last week at Bury,
in Lancashire, on occasion of opening a large Hall and Liberal Club. He spoke of Mr. Ward Hunt as having shown that it is quite possible to have an administrator who, without venturing to be economical, could be inefficient. He spoke of Mr. Cross and Sir Stafford Northcote as fulfilling the useful function of teaching Conservatives in office how far they might venture to be Liberal .and still remain members of their party. He criticised the Slave Circular, and maintained that Government always tended to a dangerous centralisation of authority, for which the only remedy was the revival of the institutions of local self-government. Mr. G. 0. Trevelyan, who also spoke, attacked sharply the Fugitive Slave Circular, and in relation to the ' Vanguard' disaster, declared that " this island is now committed to the charge of an administrator whose one and only resource in the moment of crisis is to run up to the masthead the fatal signal, England expects no one above the rank of flag-lieutenant to do his duty." Every department in the Government was hankering -after a reactionary policy, and Mr. Disraeli appeared to act on the precedents of that unlucky Admiral—a great favourite at White- hall—who when he got into a fog thought all his subordinates at liberty to slacken speed at their own discretion. Mr. Trevelyan has always a sharp word for the Tories. Mr. Disraeli will long be remembered as the Admiral in the fog who declined to slacken speed himself, but who thought that all his subordinates should be at liberty to shut off steam or not, just as they pleased, and who found one or two who did please.
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