LORD ROSEBERY.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVII, Issue 2610, 18 September 1909, Page 5

LORD ROSEBERY.

HIS REPLY TO HIS CRITICS. 'United Purrs Association—Copyright. (Received September 17, 10.50 p.m.) LONDON, Sept. 17. Lord Rosebery, in a preface to the authorised version of his speech, published by Humphreys, Piiccadilly, under ~the title “The Budget—-Its Principles and its scope,” remarks: “It is difficult to know whether anyone who is outside politics should, under any circumstances, return thereto, for reappearance has the air of intrusion, and is resented. On the other hand, there are ocoasions when common honor and honesty seem to compel anyone with deep convictions not to withhold them. Fellow countrymen, I think the •crisis in which the speech was delivered. is one of this kind. It is painful to anyone to have to put himself in opposition to his old friends and to the party with which lie was long connected. (As, however, Liberal critics have all declared the speech wholly ineffectual tand vapid, they have evidently sustained no damage by its delivery. I may notice, however, the allegation that I hafte suddenly left the Liberal party. The fact would have been more accurately stated if it had been alleged that the Liberal party has left me. They have gone ahead with alarming velocity to a spot far in advance, and have left me behind. I am where I was. In respect of party ties, when I severed official connection with the party in 1896 I resumed, as the price of that sacrifice, complete independence of political action. That independence I have claimed and exercised ever since, and I propose to continue to exercise and claim it. I am astonished that anyone at this time of day should grudge it, for there is nothing enviable or profitable about it. There is nothing) to gain. Any reward, if there be one, is invisible. At every accession to the throne the old' Great Seal is broken and invalidated, and a new one fabricated, giving the only authorised! impression. In the same way, at every general election, a new brand is made for the Liberal ,party. Those not hearing its mark are outside its legitimate ranks, hut it does not follow that they did not belong to the aid party and 1 bear the old stamp.”