Widnes Examiner. — 1888-01-14 (Widnes, Cheshire, England)

LORD SALISBURY AT LIVERPOOL.  The Marquis of Salisbury addressed a large gathering of Conservatives in Hengier's Circus, Liverpool, on Wednesday evening. Replying to an address of welcome presented by Mr. A. B. Forwood, M.P., on behalf of the South-west Lancashire and Wirral Conservative Associations, Lord Salisbury urged that the prospects of the Conservative and Liberal Unionist. forces for the future were of a very promising character. They had had a difficult battle to fight. Their political opponents had relied upon the conviction that Ireland could not be governed unless the Executive conceded all that the Irish agitators demanded; on that imagination all the hopes of the Opposition had been based, and they had directed all their policy to secnre that that imagination should be fulfilled. He did not, he remarked, like to attach too much inportance to the results of by-elections, but it seemed to him that the difference between those in the summer and those jn the autumn was due to this, that in the former case the judgment of the electors was warped by the strange and monstrous descriptions of the Crimes Act in which Parliamentary orators indulged, and that in the autumn the people saw that the Crimes Act was" doing no harm but only good." He stigmatised as a" monstrous charge " the assertion that the Conservative party were insincere in their opposition to Home Rule, and said the statement that in 1885 there were eminent members of the Conservative Cabinet, besides Lord Carnarvon,who favoured Home Rule was an "utter, complete, and absolute falsehood." After ridiculing Mr. Gladstone's suggestion that the Conservative and Liberal Unionist leaders were not to be trusted on the subject of Free Trade, the noble Marquis maintained the truth of the historical examples about the consolidation of related nationalities which he set forth at Derby on a recent occasion. While admitting that England had been guilty of many crimes against Ireland, he asserted that England's greatest crime had been her vacillation 'in the government of Ireland. He entreated the English democracy to justfy its existence as a system of government by resolution anti tenacity. Having suppressed conspiracies to murder or to steal, let it firmly • and consistently rule for the welfam of Ireland and the preservation of the Empire. On Thursday Lord Salisbury attended a private luncheon given by Mr. A. B. Forwood, at his residence. the Priory, Gateacre. Afterwards he visited in succession the Conservative Clubs at Wavertree, Edge-hill, and in Abercromby Division. and at the first made a speech commending such institutions as aids to temperance. In the evening he attended a grand banquet in the Philharmonic Hall, presided over by Lord Lathom. Responding to the toast of his health, he expressed the deternlination of the Government to carry out the law in spite of all abuse and resistaFe. He stated his conviction that the country was in process of extrication from the calamitous depression of trade, and that the touch of the magic wand Of prosperity would untie the knot of many of our political troubles. The Government were entering upon a hazardous session, and he hoped Conservatives .would remember their difficulties. To maintain the Union, they depended upon the sepport of the Unionist party, consequently their measures must bear, to a certain extent, the colour which the Unionist party gave to them. In the event of any adverse vote, they must be guided in deciding whether to appeal to the country by their sense of the overwhelming responsibility of submitting the constitution to the electors at a time not suited to obtain their real and deliberate decision. He thought that appeal should be deferred, if possible, until the result of the recent measures in Ireland was displayed to the minds of the people. Dealing with the rumours of war in Europe, his lordship said he should be sorry to induce anybody to carry his conviction to• the certainty of it permanent peace.