On Monday Sir Richard Webster, the Attorney General, made a
speech at Shanklin to the Conservative Association there, from which it appeared that he had not very much to say. He chiefly taunted the Liberals with the ill-success of their policy of " Peace, Retrenchment, and Reform." Considering that some peaces at least were made by the Liberals of which the Conservatives passionately disapproved, that they were always attacked by the Tories for not spending more, and never encouraged to diminish any serious item of expenditure (unless it were that on education), and that no Government which ever held power did so much as the late Government to carry Reform, we do not think that Sir Richard Webster's reproaches were, from a Conservative point of view, at all happily conceived. He suggested as the Liberal watch- words, " Poverty, Taxation, and Distress," to which Liberals might, with much more appropriateness, retort that the Con- servatives should emblazon on their banners, " Protection, Retaliation, and Privilege,"—considering how almost every Tory orator coquets with Fair-trade, advocates retaliation for hostile tariffs, and pleads for the privileges of the aristocratic caste.
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