Mr. Goschen's address to the electors of the Exchange Division.
of Liverpool is a very manly one. " A Liberal all my life," he says, " I have yet thought it the duty of men of all parties to close their ranks in the face of a common danger. Under the influence of that deep conviction, I have rallied to the Govern- ment of Lord Salisbury, and I now ask the electors of this division, Conservatives and Liberal Unionists alike, to rally to- me." The issue on which this election is to take place, is, says Mr. Goschen, " the maintenance of the Legislative Union between Great Britain and Ireland," which he binds himself to support. To dissolve the Union involves not only disaster to both countries, but " an abandonment of national duty." "The majority of Englishmen will be less willing than ever to surrender any portion of the United King- dom to be governed by the advocates of the 'Plan of Campaign.''' And not only is there the Union to be maintained :—beyond this, "we cannot allow the discontent of some three millions of the inhabitants of the United Kingdom to reduce more than thirty millions to impotence." So far from surrender to the Parnellites giving us a period of quiet and useful tran- quillity, Mr. Goschen believes that it would be but a first step on the path of downward degradation. " While yielding to- none in my desire to promote the welfare of my Irish fellow- citizens, and to foster in Ireland the growth of industries and the development of prosperity which lawless agitation has done so much to check, I utterly repudiate the idea that our popular Government is not competent to maintain the law and to cope with excesses, which, if unchecked, will bring free institutions into disgrace." That is in the right tone, and has a ring of confidence and power in which the Government has hitherto been somewhat deficient.
Previous page
