Lord Spencer, speaking at Hyde, in Cheshire, on Wednes- day,
declared so strongly that the Liberal Party are absolutely committed to dealing first of all with Home-110in Ireland, that we hardly think he could retain office in a‘Government which should repudiate that obligation. Of course Lord Spencer followed Mr. Gladstone in assuming that an Irish Legislature would disembarrass the Parliament at West- minster of all Irish business, and in indulging the sanguine hope that Ulster would very soon quiet dewn and take its share heartily in the new institutions. We cannot conceive any belief less reasonable. We hold that in case of Home- rule, Ulster would be found a much harder nut to crack than any other element of difficulty in the Irish question, and that the complaints from the other provinces of Ireland would be so numerous and vehement, that Parliament would be far more dangerously overloaded with Irish business than ever before,—even during the worst periods of the last ten years.
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