It is useless, with the struggle nearly over, to condense
each speech as it is uttered ; but we notice that as the contest goes on, Mr. Chamberlain becomes more resolutely Unionist, and more antagonistic to the Premier. His speech at Cardiff on Tuesday, for instance, was fall of the most outspoken expressions of opinion. He noticed Mr. Gladstone's statement that for fifteen years he had said nothing against Home-rule, and condemning that reticence upon one of the greatest of subjects, rejoiced that the dictatorship had been broken. He declared that the Govern- ment policy, said to be based on trust in Ireland, was "not trusting Ireland, but the betrayal of the people of Eng- land." As to coercion, the National League reminded him of the sluttish housemaid who, when reproached with cobwebs, retorted that it was not her fault, but that of the nasty sun, which was always showing the dirty corners. He disbelieved utterly in the restrictions provided in the Bill, and especially in the one which prevented the Irish Parliament from establishing the Roman Catholic Church. His final appeal, made to a hostile audience, was received with rapturous cheering :—" Gentlemen, your ancestors have met great diffi- culties and dangers, and have confronted them successfully. They have resisted the tyranny of Kings ; they have borne without flinching the terrors of a persecuting Church ; they have again and again rolled back the tide of foreign invasion from our shores ; they have overcome the most powerful com- bination of their foes ; and now will you, their descendants—
you, upon whose shoulders the burden of their Empire has fallen —will you be so poor-spirited as to break up your ancient Con- stitution, to destroy your venerable Parliament, and to surrender your well-earned supremacy to the vile and ignoble force of anarchy and disorder ?"
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