every fresh political departure, he had acted conscientiously and persuaded himself that he was right, find themselves utterly unable to hug themselves any longer in this belief, and turn away with averted looks and sorrowful eyes from the leader who has trampled under foot, one by one, all those principles of unselfish patriotism which elevate the nature of a man and ennoble the career of a statesman.

Mr Gladstone's latest adherent is the man whom he has perhaps used worse than any other of his followers. There is something touching in the Christian forgiveness with which Sir George Trevelyan once more sits humbly at the feet of the leader who showed a spirit so entirely the reverse and opposite when the Border Burghs' election was in question. Indeed the relentless persecution (for it was nothing less) with which Mr Gladstone and his clique visited every Liberal Unionist at the last general election must be well remembered, and brought to mind when we come to-day to gauge the sincerity of those Gladstonian orators who are proclaiming far and wide the cruel and unnatural conduct of the "Liberal Unionists" in" getting their back to the wall," and "organising" with the view of preserving their own existence. This is a proceeding which, in his present state of mind, Sir George Trevelyan utterly condemns, and, having crept back into the fold" under the cover of the "Crimes Bill," he lectures his recent companions in misfortune in a somewhat pharisaical strain, and endeavours to show that on their side lies all the blame for the schism in the Liberal party. There are those who would say that Sir George Trevelyan, who has shown himself, after all, to be but "a

reed shaken with the wind," has hardly the right to condemn, after this unsparing fashion, the men with whom he acted up to a recent period, and the party from whom he received a generous and hearty support when his old leader was stabbing him in the back at the general election. But no one disputes that Sir George Trevelyan is an honest man; and although he has unhappily come once more under the glamour of Mr Gladstone, it is worth while to scrutinise the arguments by which he defends this last eccentricity of a weak but well-meaning nature. One palpable vein is perceptible throughout the whole of that speech at the "Eighty Club" on the 16th May, in which Sir George gives to the world the carefully prepared justification of his desertion of Lord Hartington and the Unionists. Party first -principles afterwards," is the idea paramount in the Trevelyan mind. "The Liberal party must be held together"-to accomplish this object should be the main end and object of a Liberal; and this should have dominated every other feeling in other breasts, as it has in the breast of Sir George Trevelyan.

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By the light of this overpowering idea, Sir George's speech is easy of comprehension. He was in favour of the Union. Many Gladstonians have all along avowed the same feeling, utterly ignoring the fact that Mr Gladstone himself, recklessly perverting and exaggerating the history of the time, has never ceased, since his adoption of the Home Rule platform, to vilify the passing of the Union and its authors in such a manner as would be ridiculous if he really believed that Union to be for the benefit of the two islands. But Sir George Trevelyan was so truly

in favour of the Union, and so much opposed to Mr Gladstone's assault upon it, that he suffered political death for the sake of his opinions upon this question. And when he pointedly minimises the extent of his differences with Mr Gladstone at the time of the Hawick election, in order to show that he is still practically unchanged in opinion, he appears to overlook the fact that in so doing he is affording proof of that which is so resolutely denied by his new allies, namely, the unreasoning, utter, and complete obedience and humble submission which was required by Mr Gladstone in order to avert his opposition, personal and unrelenting, to all those who refused it. Sir George Trevelyan fought and fell as Unionist, and for the cause of the Union, threatened by Mr Gladstone's proposed legislation. That cause is the same in the summer of 1887 as it was in the summer of 1886. But, says Sir George, "Mr Gladstone's bills are or at least the text of the bills is dead." He quotes from a Liberal address lately sent to him, and says it exactly defines the political situation. "These bills are not now before the country, and are never likely again to be introduced into the House of Commons in their original form." This may or may not be so; but it cannot be denied that the principle of these bills -i.e., the establishment of a separate Parliament in Ireland alive, and is the one principle which holds the Gladstonian-Parnellites together. That principle must be abandoned and repudiated by those who assume to lead the Liberal party, before patriotic Liberals can feel the union safe enough to dispense with a "Unionist party," or can con

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sider the "unity" of any mere political party as their first object. The cause of the Union is just as much a great and a national cause as when Sir George Trevelyan thought so last year. Yet to-day he calmly declares that "of all the parties in the House of Commons, the "Liberal Unionists, as long as they insist on being a separate party, are on the least stable ground," and proceeds to condemn them for "keeping up a separate organisation." It is obvious that the justice or injustice of Sir George's criticism depends entirely upon whether the maintenance of the Union between Great Britain and Ireland is of sufficient importance to override and outweigh any party considerations. Sir George thought so last year- this year he thinks differently; and without accusing him of a preference of party to patriotism, we owe that we think he is placing party upon a higher pedestal than it deserves to occupy, and is thereby lowering the standard by which public men who love their country should guide their political conduct.

When Sir George Trevelyan proceeds to tell the Liberal Unionists what their "true policy" should have been, and how wrong they are to support a Conservative Government, he again falls into the confusion of ideas natural to a thick-and-thin "party man.” Those whom he condemns do not support the present Government because it is Conservative," but because it is Unionist”; and the introduction of a "scheme for the settlement of Ireland," upon which we are told the Liberal Unionists should have insisted, has for the present been rendered impossible, not by the action of the Government, but by the factious conduct of

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unparliamentary jeers and gestures which have been employed, and the extraordinary patience by which they have been endured by those who now constitute the majority of the House of Commons.

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It is almost cruel to dwell longer upon Sir George Trevelyan, who must still be writhing under the complete and merciless exposure of his inconsistency which has been inflicted upon him by Lord Randolph Churchill, and which places him in a pitiable light indeed before the public eye. It is impossible, however, to omit to call attention to the commencement of this Manchester speech, in which the repentant sinner again halts and wavers between his country and his party, even after he has yielded to the mandate of the latter and deserted the cause of the former. He shows, indeed, a sad want of power to appreciate the importance of the issues involved in the contest, when he speaks of himself as one who, having felt bound to oppose the majority of his own party on the question of two famous Bills,""now that the battle is over, and the contest is transferred into other fields, refuses to keep open old wounds, and to take part in an organised opposition to a party with which he agrees on nineteen questions out of twenty, because a twelvemonth ago he disagreed with them in their treatment of what was then the question of the day." Was ever such nonsense written by a sensible man? If the question of Home Rule was not a great and overshadowing question, far away above and beyond ordinary political matters, Sir George Trevelyan ought not to have, and never would have, separated himself from his party. But having conscientiously done so, how can he pretend that the

over"? The Gladstonians have not accepted the verdict of the country, but, on the contrary, are doing their utmost to obtain its reversal; and it is their action which has "kept open" and widened "old wounds." The "organised opposition was begun on their side; and the Liberal Unionists, in following the example, are only fighting for their own existence.

It would have been well for Sir George Trevelyan if he could have remained silent during that exclusion from Parliament which we all hope will be but temporary, for his reputation for statesmanship has suffered irretrievable damage from his recent utterances. Nor can his present mental condition be entirely comfortable, for he tells us that he "heartily endorses Lord Hartington's conditions" with respect to Irish legislation, to all appearance entirely forgetting that compliance or agreement with these same conditions was denounced by Mr Gladstone at Carlisle as an invitation to him to "walk into the gutter," and urged as a reason why the Unionist member for Carlisle should be rejected.

It is idle, however, further to follow the vacillation and inconsistency of Sir George Trevelyan, who, no later than the 13th of March last, emphatically told the

people of Liskeard that "it is the decided duty of the Liberal Unionists to strengthen the hands of the Government in dealing with disorder in Ireland." We can only regret that the giver of such sound advice should have afforded another instance of the power of party prejudice to weaken patriotic inspirations and deprive the country of good and valuable services. But there is little hope of good service to his country from a man who, at such a crisis as the present, tells us that "the reunion of the Liberal party at this moment is the one object of his life;" and we can only hope that the lapse of time may yet show him that there are higher and nobler objects which should guide the career of a statesman and a patriot. Fortunately for the country, the issue before us is becoming better and better understood, in spite of Gladstonian misrepresentation and Parnellite effrontery. It is a noteworthy

fact that in Radical and Nonconformist Cornwall, the majority of 2000 for the Gladstonian in the St Austell division in 1885 should have fallen to 200 in 1887,-for although the Unionist candidate had the advantage of being a Cornish man, not only were the Liberal Unionists completely unorganised, but the Radical candidate had a Wesleyan connection which told largely in his favour. But the light is beginning to shine in Cornwall as well as in other parts of the country; and as the conduct and policy of Mr Gladstone and his Parnellite allies become more and more conspicuously identified before the eyes of the constituencies, we confidently believe that the followers of the ex-Premier will gradually fall away, that the cause of the Union will be felt to be the cause of patriotism, and that a great and lasting triumph will crown the efforts of the Constitutional party.