We are happy to see that Lord George Hamilton's seat
for Middlesex is to be contested, and by Mr. Herbert Gladstone. fourth son of the ex-Premier. Lord George Hamilton is a pro- mising young man, but apparently he will always remain one. His cockiness never sobers into confidence, and his speeches often read like those of a man who has no real mind at
but says the thing that best expresses bitter feeling. In his speech at Southwark, for instance, he declared that the true danger of England was a Liberal Government, sup- ported by Home-rule votes, which the Government would not have backbone enough to resist. Then "the Liberal party -would drift more and more into the ideas of Home-rule, and !concede more and more of that pernicious principle, until at last it became difficult to maintain the unity of the realm." This was uttered after every Liberal leader had repudiated Home-rule. And then he declared that the true question for the nation to decide was "whether it approved the conduct of the Opposition during the last four years." In other words, the electors are not to think of what Government has done, or failed to do, but of what its opponents have said about it. 'There is the very essence not of English, but of Continental 'Toryism in that sentence. Your true Reactionary is never con- tent, either with power or success, unless he can also suppress
• criticism on both. Mr. Gladstone is, to Tories, Mordecai sitting in the gate.
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