Excerpt from Political Speeches: Delivered During the General Election, 1885 The republication of Election Speeches must always be a matter of some delicacy. The colour given to various controversies is generally laid on somewhat thickly in a period of political excite ment, and topics of temporary interest are lifted into abnormal importance. But, in the late contest in the Eastern Division of Edinburgh, my own position, as a Candidate unopposed by a Conservative, relieved me to a great extent from the necessity of reiterating party common-places, and from taking part in the recriminatory rhetoric which is unavoidable in ordinary elections. I was thus enabled to devote a considerable part of my attention to social and economic questions of general and permanent interest, and also to treat, from an independent point of view, the impending Irish crisis, the issues involved in which were not at that time directly submitted to the constituencies, but have since become of absorbing interest. 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.