Mr. Asquith, who is evidently the rising man of the
new Administration, made an able and eloquent speech at Liver- pool yesterday week at the National Liberal Federation, though he did not pay much respect to the advice given to those who are just girding on their armour, not to boast themselves as those who are putting it off. He took great credit to Mr. Acland for having made a reality of the Free Schools under the Free Edncation Act, stating what will be a surprise to most people, that on September 1st last, out of nearly five millions of children on the books of Elementary Schools, there were no fewer than a million and a quarter, or nearly a quarter of the whole, who were still paying fees from a penny a week upwards ; and that Mr. Aoland had taken prompt measures to remedy this state of things. Mr. Asquith also congratulated himself in a much less moderate spirit than that of his original speech on the Trafalgar Square meetings, on having restored the public right of meeting there, which, with rather a curious self-contradiction to his statement of two or three months ago, he declared, had been "arbitrarily and wantonly interfered with without any cause of complaint," He also praised Mr. Morley enthusiastically, and declared that he is now more trusted hi Ireland than any living Irishman; which is possible. But is he more trusted. than any living Scotchman ? We doubt whether on a secret ballot Mr. Balfour would not run him very close. Mr. Asquith's view of Home-rule is that it can only succeed if the Irish are prepared to co-operate heartily with England, and to work any scheme which they accept in a moderate and constitutional spirit,—which, considering the recent history of the Irish Nationalists, is very like saying that it cannot in all human probability succeed at all.
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