NEWS OF THE WEEK.
LORD STANLEY made a very able speech at the Bristol Con- servative demonstration on Wednesday,—though his ability was chiefly shown, as regards the future, in the very Conservative task of explaining, as we have shown elsewhere, how to let ill alone. His apology for the Conservative policy of last year on Reform was, however, as good as such an apology could be in the nature of things, and infinitely more effective for its purpose than Mr. Disraeli's at Edinburgh. It was impossible, or, at least, very impolitic, he said, for the Conservative party to oppose itself to the deliberately expressed will of the nation ; there would have been far more danger in doing so than in yielding, for how much would not the present disaffection in Ireland have been aggravated by an English working-class full of wrath against the Govern- ment ! For himself, Lord Stanley felt no fear, though admitting the change to be serious, and perhaps' beyond what he and some of his friends wished. He saw no ground for alarm in the alleged majority of a single class in the constituencies. There was the same majority of the lower middle class in the old constituencies, and yet no legislation that could fairly be called interested class-legislation on the part of that class. In reply to the argu- ment from the democratic government of the Colonies, Lord Stanley simply affirmed that England is not a colony, and that wealth fairly used, and culture which is real as well as showy, will continue to exercise their old influence. Lord Stanley's apology for the Reform Act was, in short, not that it was useful; but that it was demanded in a manner dangerous to refuse, and that the " innovating impulse" would soon spend itself, and leave things pretty much in practice as they are.
