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CARDIFF A PENARTH 'BUSES I

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THE secret is out. Mr. GLADSTONE went to Birmingham yesterday to assist in the formation of what is neither more nor less than a copy of. the famous French Jacobin Club. About this there can be no possible doubt, if we are to construe in the ordinary sense of the words the language of the promoters of the meeting, and the inter. pretation put upon it by the subsequent speech of Mr. GLADSTONE. The Birmingham mountain which has been recently in labour has brought forth what to ordinary common sense Englishmen will undoubtedly be con. sidered a ridiculous mouse. The idea is to form a sort of Liberal, or, what we might more properly say, Radical Parliament out- side the walls of the Parliament of England. The object of the conference to which Mr. GLADSTONE was invited to attend, we are told, was to consider the scheme for the for. mation of a National Confederation of the Liberal Associations through- out the country, founded upon the prin. ciple of popular representation; that is to say, that there will be a Radical Parliament set up in some centre like Birmingham, which will hold its consultations, and, in the lan. guage of the projectors of the meeting, will promote the establishment of Liberal prin. ciples in tho government of the country. This is too much akin to the practice of the Jacobins in the time of the first French Revolution to allow us to pass it over without notice. On every conspicuous occasion of public interest involving the des. tinies of this country abroad, or its I peace at home, there will be another Parlia- ment either in Birmingham or some other centre of Radical opinion declaiming against the opinion of tho Parliament of the country if it does not happen to accord with thai of this novel institution. The inconvenience of such a gathering of English Jacobins will be readily obvious, and we are glad to see that no politician of anything like reputation, even on the Liberal side, has anything to do with it beyond Mr. GLADSTONE him. self. The list of members present at the public meeting begins with Mr. CHAMBERLAIN, who may be called an un- fledged politician, and appropriately ends with Mr. WHALLET, the oomic mombar for Peterborough. We should hardly have thought that Mr. GLADSTONE would at this period of his life and of his fame have con- sented to walk through Covent ry with such a ragged regiment. We are prepared to believe in the language of the report that Mr. GLADSTONE met with atreception which partook of all tho charac- teristics of a Roman triumph. We have never assisted at a Roman triumph, but we can easily believe that after the exhausting effects of the Whitsuntide holidays the good citizens of Birmingham were only too ready to take another holiday, and to turn out en masse to welcome the OX-PREMIER. Nobody seemed to care much as to what had be. come of Mr. BRIGHT. All the honours of the day wete reserved to Mr. GLADSTONE, and possibly the en- thusiasm attending the reception of the ex. PREMIER was not a little intensified by the fact that Mr. BRIGUT preserves his con- sistency. As a matter of fact, however, the real cause of the enthusiasm is easily trace- able, as was recently pointed out, to the com- mon feeling of hero worship possessed by multitudes. The Birmingham people would turn out just as readily to listen to Mr. GLADSTONE without having to pay anything for tho treat as they would to any other entertainment which happened to be deprived of the element of cost. jfir. GLADSTONE'S reputation as an orator. leaving out of consideration his reputation as a statesman, is quite sufficient to bring a large crowd together in a city which has been fed upon the chaste oratory of Mr. BRIGHT for so many years. Of course the gentlemen who pro- jected the conferonco, with the usual tact of those who get up these demonstrations, put forward as their first card, what is really their only card, viz., the Eastern Question; but it is to be noted that in the resolution moved by Mr. R. W. DALE there was no word of con- demnation of the conduct of the Government, while it was declared that Trrkey had lost all claim to the material or moral support of this country. The Eastern Question has, however, been so thoroughly thrashed out, and speeches, even in so Radi- cal a centre as Birmingham, are so much beside the issue, that we need not concern ourselvos with them. The chief interest of the demonstration lies of course in Mr. GLADSTONE'S speech, and he took care in the early sentences of it to show the reason why he had betaken him. self to the proper hunting grounds of Mr. JOHN BRIGHT. He has, after boing rejected at Oxford and in South West Lancashire, suddenly discovered that Birmingham possesses a great fame in con. nection with the electoral organisation of the Liberal party. This discovery he declares was the reason for his presence there yesterday. It is not for the purpose of declar- ing himself again a candidate for the leadership of the Liberal party that he appears at Birmingham, but that he wishes to take tho position of a leader of an organisation outside of Parlia- ment-that is to say, his intention is to become an imitation of the leading men of the Jacobin Club. He does not desire to oust Lord HARTFNGTON, but he wishes to be head of an organisation which will inform the Liberal leaders when that party wishes to move briskly and resolutely forward in the accomplishment of some thing not particularly defined. If, to use Mr. GLADSTONE'S expression, we under- "stand him aright," what he means is to become the head of a Parliament which will watch over, criticise, condemn, and, if possible, upset the decisions of the Imperial Parliament when they are not in harmony with what we may call the Radical College of electors. The Birmingham Conference must, therefore, be credited with one great achievement, that of having introduced an entirely novel idea into English politics. At the same time it is obvious that a new terror will probably be added to the lives of members of the House of Common*. The idea of the debates and the decisions ome to at Westminster being deliberated upon and possibly condemned by a Radical Congress sitting at Birmingham, the said Congress professing to be representatives of the English nation, suggests a danger to the stability of our institutions which cannot be regarded with- out apprehension by every one who has been in the habit of considering that, short of per- fection in constitutional government, the British Constitutional theories and practices ought to be maintained in their integrity. However, Mr. GLADSTONE has in his time destroyed a good many things, and it may possibly be his fate to assist in the destruc- tion of that constitutional machine which has worked so well for the benefit of the English nation, and which has so long been the envy and the admiration of the world.

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