Mr. Gladstone has been memorialised by the irate Radicals, whom
the Lord Chancellor lectured last week on his responsi- bilities with regard to the County Bench, and be has replied, in one of his most cautious letters, vindicating Lord Herschell, and insisting on the great difficulty of introducing, on a sudden, on to the Bench of the various counties that political impartiality and equality which all Liberals desire. To this, Mr. Storey has written a rather tart reply in the name of the Radicals, reiterating the positive necessity of introducing something like equality between the number of Unionist and Gladstonian Magistrates, and intimating, not obscurely, that unless this is done, Mr. Gladstone's Radical supporters will not be as loyal as he might wish. The truth seems to be that Mr Storey and the memorialists regard it as much more important that there should be as many Gladstonians as Unionists on the Bench, than that all the Magistrates should be at leisure, and personally competent, to do justice well. As for the plea of the difficulty, delicacy, and length of the task which is imposed upon Lord Herschell, they take no notice of it whatever. Yet that was Mr. Gladstone's chief theme, as it had also been Lord Herschell's. What is that to Mr. Storey and his friends P
