The indignation caused among the Conservatives of Birmingham, and indeed throughout the country, by these events was fierce and bitter. Lord Randolph Churchill turned to the fullest advantage the blunder into which his adversaries had been drawn. Every day for a week, in spite of repeated threats of personal violence, he journeyed to and fro in Birmingham and in a series of speeches, published and read in every part of the country, he fastened the responsibility for disorder and intimidation upon Mr. Chamberlain and his Caucus. He urged Conservative working men to take effective measures to protect themselves from tyranny and not to hesitate to meet force by force. ‘I do not think,’ he said, ‘the Conservative party ought to look to the police for assistance. We are quite capable of taking care of ourselves.’ Formal resolutions were accordingly passed by Conservative Clubs, pledging themselves to take concerted measures of defence and of reprisal. Upon the connection of the Birmingham Corporation with Radical politics he was explicit. The contest in Birmingham is not a contest, such as is carried on in other constituencies in England, between party and party. It is a contest between popular self-government and a corrupt oligarchy; between electoral freedom and Russian despotism; between open dealing and Venetian espionage; between individual security and public order and all the resources and ingenuity of terror and intimidation. The whole of the governing power of the borough of Birmingham is almost absolutely in the hands of the Caucus. The patronage disposed of is enormous. The Caucus, acting under the name of the Corporation, own the gasworks; they own the water supply; they control the lunatic asylums; they control the grammar school; they control some large establishments in the nature of a drainage farm; they manipulate the borough funds to the extent of nearly one million a year; they pay something like 80,000_l._ a year in wages; and their number of employees, as far as I can ascertain, is about 25,000. And all these enormous resources are directed principally, not so much to the good of the town of Birmingham, as to the maintenance of the power of the Caucus. Every one of their employees knows that he holds his office, his position, his employment, upon the distinct understanding that in all political and municipal matters he must blindly submit himself; and upon the slightest sign even of independence--to say nothing of opposition--he will lose his employment; he will be thrown upon the world with all his family, even if it should lead to his ruin or his starvation.