Lord Derby made a very impressive speech to the Liberal
Unionists of Liverpool yesterday week, in which he said that even if the Irish obstruction had not been organised, it would have been necessary to alter rules of Parliamentary debate made for a Parliament in which two-thirds of the Members never spoke, to- suit a Parliament in which hardly any Members habitually hold their tongues. He did not think that the Celts would win the game against Saxon patience, but that they would be tired of obstructing before we arc tired of steadily pursuing our way. What the Irish want is a separate nationality, and no English statesman thinks of giving them what they want. Mr. Glad- stone's scheme would never have satisfied them, though it would have given them an indefinite power of squeezing more out of us. Lord Derby made very light of the charges brought against the Irish Crimes Bill, and did not believe that the democracy of this island would inaugurate their power "by abdicating func- tions, abandoning rights, and ignoring claims which their pre- decessors had for generations respected," at the dictation of an Irish Party which has shown how "grave and high problems of statesmanship may be vulgarised and butchered by the mouths of brawling demagogues."
Previous page
