Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1892-06-19
FINESSE OF THE TORIES.
Gladstone's Shrewd Manner of Avoid
ing Ticklish Subject
SUCCESS OF ULSTER'S CONVENTION
Strange Tolerance on the Part Of the
Archbishop Of Canterbury.
INSULTS TO LIVERPOOL MoHAMMEDANs
rnr CABLE TO TIE DISPATCH. ]

House of Commons has adjourned until
Monday because it has nothing to do. In
anxiety to get clear of business it went too
fast to suit the Government, with the result
that although the order book is clear, the
Commons will have to wait until the House
of Lords has finished with certain bills sent
up long ago
The chief aim of the dying government is
to manipulate the time of Parliament SO
that dissolution shall occur upon date
which shall prevent any borough elections
taking place on a Saturday, the Tory calcula-
tions being that there are always about 10 per
cent of the Liberal working men who can-
not vote except on the last day of the week.
The Tories have always attributed their
rushing defeat in the municipal elections
last March to the fact that the polling took
place on Saturday. and as Mr.. Balfour re-
tains his mechanical majority in Parliament
he has used it to prevent such mistake be-
ing made again.
The law provides that certain period
shall elapse between the dissolution of
Parliament and the election of its sue
cessor, and by dissolving on Tuesday, the
2Sth, or Wednesday, the 29th instant, it
will be impossible to have any borough
elections on the following Saturday. They
must all take place between Monday and
Thursday in the following week
BaIfour's Orders to Be Obeyed.
Mr.. Balfour announced that dissolution
will place not later than the 29th or 30th
instant. but he has already decided upon the
Both, and the House of Lords has received
orders to regulate its business accordingly.
1t is shabby move, but good strategy.
Liberal leaders profess to believe that its
meanness will so disgust the people that the
Government will lose more votes than it
gains bv it, but they know, as well as Mr.
Balfour, that while its positive effect will
be 10 disfranchise thousands of Liberals, 1t
will not induce single Tory to vote against
his ticket. The only people disgusted are
the Liberals
The universal belief that the general cleo
tion will send Mr. Gladstone back to power
finds expression at the moment in specula-
tioR as to the time of meeting of the new
Parliament and what it will do when it
does meet. There will be no arrears of
business to take up, as the supply for the
whole financial year has been voted. There
will be no legal obligation upon the present
Government to meet Parliament this year,
where but precedent requires that the new
House of Commons shall be called together
within about six weeks of its election by
the people.
Probabilities OF the Coming Fall.
The probabilities are that Parliament will
meet the third week in August and pass
resolution of want of confidence in the min
sters, who will forthwith resign. Adjourn
ment will then be taken until January, thus
giving Mr.. Gladstone ample time to form
his Government anG draft his home rule
bill
Mr. Gladstone's confidence in his coming
triumph was strikingly shown Thursday by
his manner of treating labor deputation
which waited upon him to ask that legis-
lative eight-hour day should be placed in
the forefront of the Liberal programme.
1t is pretty well known that the party man.
ayers, alarmed at the prospect of losing
some seats in consequence OF
trusion of labor candidates, have
urged Mr.. Gladstone to accept the principle
Of regulating hours of work by act of Par
lament, but he has steadily refused to do
So He even declined to receive labor
delegates in order to discuss proposal,
which he evidently considers preposterous,
although ne has never said so in set terms
But that refusal was palpably unwise from
business point of view, and means were
found to bring the Grand Old Man and the
workingmen together in conference.
An extremely interesting limo
Thursdays gathering was extremely in
teresting. The deputation consisted of 16
members of the London Trades Council,
directly representing 10000 organized
workers. Two were Socialists, but except
Secretary Shipton, all were actual opera
tive workmen, the pick of their class. They
went to Carlton House Terrace, fully primed
with arguments calculated to double mp the
Grand Old Man, who confessedly commenced
TO study the eight-hour question only the
other week, and they lett the house two
hours later, metaphorically rubbing their
heads and wondering how they came to get
such a terrible drubbing.
Nothing could have exceeded the requisite
urbanIty of Mr.. Gladston e's manner He
shook hands with each delegate and had all
of them comfortably seated at the same
table as himself Then he smiled blandly
upon the toilers and suggested that the pro-
ceedings should be of conversational char
acter, as that would enable them ''to get
further into the interior of the question"
The arrangements suited the desire of the
delegates admirably, because they were 16
to l, all of them experts in the subject to
be discussed, while poor old Gladstone was
mere novice. But in the Socratic dispu-
tation which ensued, the assailants were
utterly routed. They bombarded the grand
old dialectician with arguments and ques-
tions which he replied to or fenced as he
pleased with consummate ease.
smsrtness of the Grand Old Man.
Arguments fondly supposed to be IRE
sistible were shown to be shallow sophisms
and questions artfully designed to drive the
old statesman into awkward corners were
answered without use of either affirmative
or negative.
The delegates frequently found them
selves on the defensive, without any idea of
how they got there, for some of Mr..
Gladstone's most telling arguments were
sugar-coated in questions put by him in the
character Of an earnest searcher after truth.
The end of it all was that Mr. Gladstone,
without pronouncing direct opinion for or
against fxation of hours of labor BY legisls-
i've enactment, declared that the giving of
ONE rule to Ireland would furnish him
ith all the work he was likely to be able
10 perform during his lifetime, and he dis
missed the delegates with these words:
It is fair l should say that in my opinion
one of the very highest duties Of all poll
+Icians under all circumstances and at all
cost. is to eschew and to repudiate the rails
ing of any expectations except that they
Know they can fulfill. Therefore, can say
nothing more. 1 appeal TO my life, appeal
70 what have hitherto viewed as my duty
70 the industrial classes, putting them in the
nosition OF standing mp for their own rights,
- I that what little future ba va