Mr. Gladstone, who, after his speeches at Nottingham and Derby,
was, we regret to learn, confined to his room for a day or more at Sudbury Hall, the house of Lord Vernon, from a slight chill, resumed his journey to Ripon on Tuesday, and spoke briefly, both at Leeds and Ripon, in answer to addresses of welcome. In both speeches he denounced the Government with even more indignant passion than that of his Nottingham addressee. At Leeds, he said :—" The deplorable policy of the Government in Ireland cannot end where it is. They will go on from bad to worse. There is this excuse to be made, that any outrage that the Government commits now, naturally grows out of a previous outrage, and that I cannot deny. I cannot deny that Woodford grew out of the conduct at Micheletown. The conduct at Michelstown grew out of the conduct at Ennis. The conduct at Ennis grew out of the Coercion Bill. And the Coercion Bill, outrageous as it is, grew out of the determination to refuse flame-rule." Precisely the same language might have
been applied to Mr. Gladstone's own last Administration The Coercion Act of 1882 grew out of the Coercion Act of 1881. The Coercion Act of 1881 grew out of the determination to put down the resistance to the Land Bill. And the determination to put down the resistance to the Land Bill grew out of the determina- tion to resist Home-rule.' But what was firmness and patriotism in Mr. Gladstone in those years, he regards and describes as outrage now in men who have not been able to abandon the attitude which he then assumed.
