THE LIBERALS.

Thames Star, Volume XI, Issue 3664, 23 September 1880, Page 3

THE LIBERALS.

It might be supposed, from the tone in which the present Government are talked about in most London circles, that the only way of escape from the establishments of the red Republic was the summary expulsion of Mr Gladstone and bis colleagues from Office followed by a Conservative. It was predicted that if the Liberals came back to office under the " inspired demagogue " who is now Prime Minister, they would ruin the country; and we are a being assured the prophecy is being rapidly fulfilled. Already sacrilegious hands have been laid upon the most solemn kind of property. The malt has been touched, the land has been touched; and while Debilitated Cousin thinks " country's — going — dayyle — steeplechase pace." Sir Leicester Dfdlock terrifically remarks that the " flod gates of society are burst open, and the waters hay the land-marks of the framework of the cohesion by which things are held together." Country gentlemen on both sides of St. George's Channel write to the papers to say that ii two certain and most iniquitous measures become law, the United Kingdom will cease to be habitable and that they emigrate forthwith. Once again has Mr Disraeli's famous image been fulfilled, and the Boots of the Blue Bell aud the chambermaid of the Bed Lion have, as the new numbers of the Edinburgh and Quarterly Eeview testify, embraced each other, and " denounced the infamy of railroads" with impressive unanimity. The Edinburgh. Eeview protests that, unless the Whigs can at once leaven the whole mass of the Liberal party. Liberalism will be irretrievably discredited. The Quarterly Review appeals to the Whigs in the name of moderation and respectability to make common cause with the Conservatives without a moment's delay. Now the Radicals form as influential a division of the Liberal party as the Whigs. They are willing to wait, and they have confidence in the future. The Whics have always shown a just perception of historical development. When Fate and necessity have interposed their presence in the political path, the "Whigs have, after a few natural regrets, hastened to come to terms with the enemy. They know that 'pure Whig principles' are impracticable, and they will make the best compromise they can by the modified admission of Radical aims. The notion of a coalition between ■\\hiirs and Conservatives is chimerical and fantastic, if only for the reason that it makes no allowance either for the fact that such, an arrangement also affords no adequate opportunity for gratifying the political ambition of all the soaring spirits of the new confederation, or that it would involve the practical effacement of Whiggism as a political school.