Mr. Goschen has been the first politician of Cabinet rank
to make a speech outside Parliament. He addressed a new Liberal Association at Frome on Tuesday in a style which seems to have excited an enthusiasm of delight. The speech, in truth, was far better than any which the Member for London has recently delivered in Parliament, full of point, and confidence, and ' go' ; a speech to encourage the despondent and fire the audacious. The Session, he said, had been dull at first, so dull, that a Member told him he was sorry he had ever tried to enter the House ; but it grew warm towards its close, although, as he freely admitted, the Services . were more contented. " The Colonels had ceased from troubling, and the Admirals were at rest." That was a good thing, and though the time was about to arrive for criticism, and though he repudiated the Conservative doc- trine that a Tory might abuse anybody, but a Liberal must be mealy-mouthed, he would rather the criticism were one of prin- ciples than of administrative details. The Liberals must win back their way to power by a struggle on principles. The Tories had principles, though they could not act on them. No cheers were so loud as those which greeted the most violent passages in Lord Sandon's speech upon the Endowed Schools Bill. Lord Sandon modified his language, "but you cannot modify the cheer." Ministers had always been cheered on the first announcement of their measures, and had only become crestfallen when they dis- covered in Committee that the country would not have them. The fact was, Mr. Disraeli, with a Conservative majority and a super-Conservative Cabinet, could not pass Conservative measures; and the principles of Liberals were embodied in the measures, the budgets, and the estimates of their successors.
