Mr. Chamberlain made a lively speech at Hackney yesterday week
in support of the candidature of Mr. Charles Russell, M.P., for South Hackney. Mr. Stephenson, who presided, in introducing Mr. Chamberlain to the meeting, spoke of him, as regarded by "the toiling classes of the country, as their truest and best friend." Mr. Chamberlain, however, devoted-himself chiefly to an attack on the Government, which he delivered with great pungency, only remarking by way of prelude :—" I have an unbounded faith in the wisdom and judgment of the mass of the people, and I believe that the great evils in our social system,—evils which are a disgrace to our civilisation, which statesmen have failed to remedy, which philosophers have ignored, and which parties have played with, that these will find their solution, when the people themselves are called upon to work out their salvation, and when those who suffer from these evils find expression for their opinions and adequate words [ways ?] for giving effect to the remedies they propose." That is rather vague, and looks like ascribing a sort of charm or spell to popular government, apart from the nobleness and sense and self-restraint of the people who exercise that self-government.
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