Nevertheless, Kr. Leathern believes, with Mr. Joseph Chamber- lain, who
writes on "the next page of the Liberal programme" in the new Fortnightly, that the Church question is the most import- ant and likely to be the first in the new Radical programme, and Mr. Leathern thinks that Mr. Gladstone may be persuaded, by his love for ecclesiastical liberty, to take the lead in a Disestablish- ment which will soon, he thinks, be thenecessary condition of Angli- can liberty. We do not hold with Mr. Leatham there, and have explained why we think his calculation utterly wrong- in another column. Mr: Chamberlain seems to us wiser in his generation, when he insists on Disendovrment and its proceeds as the one great attraction which may make a popular question of the assault on the Church. But the Radical leaders, if they are going to take up that cry, will have to be very cautious not to give colour to a charge of proposing the plunder of the Church as the aim of their agitation.
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