Lord Granville rather opportunely reminded his audience at Shrewsbury on
Tuesday that the Tory Plenipotentiaries at Berlin in 1878 were so intent on the separation of the two Bul- garias that they threatened to leave the Congress,—which would have meant war,—if the division of the two were not agreed to. He himself, in answer to the boast that this division would last thirty years, publicly said that it would not last twenty years, nor even ten years, and even he had overrated the period of its endurance. And now Lord Salisbury is himself as anxious to promote the union as he previously was to insist on the separation. Lord Granville also declared, " with authority," that the foreign policy of the late Government was seriously paralysed abroad by the constant and savage attacks upon it in the House of Commons,—attacks, the tone and temper of which produced a general indisposition in Europe to regard the Government and its acts as in any way a final authority for the intentions of the British people. In his evening speech Lord Granville pleaded strongly for hearty union among the Liberals, and strongly deprecated the exclusion of men like Mr. Goschen, on the one side, or of Mr. Chamberlain, on the other, from the inner councils of the party. He described himself as a cementing influence, and as nearer to the general creed of Mr. Bright, than to that of any other great Liberal whose creed is generally known and understood.
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