The Duke of Devonshire was the principal speaker at a
meeting organised by the local branch of the Unionist Free-Food League at Liverpool on Tuesday night. luau interesting survey, the Duke observed that in all the historic contests in which be had been engaged the cause with which he had been associated had ultimately triumphed, and he hoped that fact might be an augury of ultimate success now. Turning to the fiscal agita- tion, which bad burst upon them like a storm from a clear sky, the Duke explained the position he had occupied in the early stages of the controversy. When he spoke of inquiry, he never imagined it would be limited to the production of a mass of undigested statistics, and satisfied by the issue of an academical treatise by the Prime Minister. Still less did he contemplate that the intervening period would be utilised by one of his colleagues to organise a plan of Campaign, secure the support of a large portion of the Press, and capture the political organisations. "Still less did he anticipate that when that Minister was released from the obligations of office he would be permitted, with the open acquiescence of some and the tacit acquiescence of the remainder, to preach a crusade against all of the accepted doctrines which had hitherto governed our fiscal policy." . In endeavouring to justify the attitude of the Government; he had been a party to a course which had misled the people, and it was now his duty, as one partly responsible-for the situation, to do what he could to avert a hasty decision.
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