Excerpt from The Annual Register: A Review of Public Events at Home and Abroad, for the Year 1895 The actual political campaign was opened by Mr. A. J. Balfour, who addressed his constituents in East Manchester (jan. 16) a week later. He anticipated a general election within a comparatively short time, certainly within the year, and he then laid down with precision the issue upon which it would be fought throughout the country. The Unionists, he said, would uphold a national clicy, putting the interests of the whole nation in the front oi) the battle. Their opponents, made up of clique and sections, could only be held together by reciprocal pledges to assist each other in destroying in turn the political aversion of each clique - the unity of the kingdom at the request of the Irish cli ue, the unity of the national Church at the request of the elsh clique, and the unity of the Constitution at the request of the Radical clique. For himself and his party, Mr. Balfour declared that their policy was to keep the empire secure and powerful, to strike at the root of Socialism by inaugurating Wise and tem erate social reforms, and to preserve such institutions as had ife by adapting them to the special needs of the time. The most important feature, however, of Mr. Balfour's speech was the indication it gave of his own wishes and feelings with regard to the outcome of the approaching general election. He anticipated clearly the return of the Unionists to power, and be regarded the necessity of including in any Cabinet 9. Fair proportion of those Liberals who, since 1886, had thrown in their lot with the Conservatives. His desire obviously was that such a coalition Cabinet should represent the groups of which the Unionist party had been formed, and had acquired its power in the country. The example set by Mr. Goschen would, he hoped, be followed on a larger scale, and the rank and file of the party he prepared to ratify such an arrangement. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.