Colonel Saunderson made an amusing speech at Bath on Wednesday
at a great Unionist meeting there. He said that Lord Salisbury's demand for twenty years of firm govern- ment was a considerable over-estimate. Five years of Mr. Balfour had been quite enough. Ireland was a very easy country to govern if one went about it in the right way, namely with firmness, justice, and generosity. If he were asked the policy of the present Government, he would say it was to sit on the Treasury Bench ; but there, we think, Colonel Saunderson was too severe. It may apply to Sir William Harcourt. But most of those who make up the Government are really fanatics for some revolutionary change or other. Colonel Saunderson was very severe on Mr. Morley. Re- ferring to his Commission on the evicted tenants, he said that it was the first instance for two hundred years of a British statesman deliberately accepting and making his own what the highest tribunals and judges in the land had declared to be a criminal conspiracy. For the Commission was nothing but an attempt to relieve those evicted for taking part in the " Plan of Campaign " of the consequences of that criminal act. And he even believed that the Government were going to let out the dynamitards. Let us hope that there, again, Colonel Saunderson is too severe. Such an act would, we believe, do more to shake the present Government than any other they have it in their power to determine upon.
Previous page
