In his speech at the Mayor's banquet at Chester on
Tuesday night, the Duke of Westminster permitted himself the use of pretty strong language as to the Irish Nationalists. The Par- nellites, he said, had, he thought, obtained their influence over the Irish electors "by the aid of the most intense cruelty and the most extreme extortion, by money received out of the pockets of those who could ill afford it, by the aid of assassina- tion and murder, and, to their shame be it spoken, with the assistance of some members of the priesthood of the Roman Catholic Church." "They profess," said the Dake,—though we think he was here speaking without book, for whether they wish it or not, they profess not to intend it,—" that they wish to separate the island of Ireland from the kingdom of England. They know, for they are not such fools as not to know, that that ma thing they will never get,—that they never can get,—and by God's help and our own right arm, which,Heaven knows, is power- ful enough, they never shall get it." Again, the Duke went far beyond what he could justify when be asserted that the Irish leaders spentthe subscriptions they received "on their own selfish ends, debauchery and comparative luxury in London." As to the iriall-Americenep whom he called "an infamous band," egging on
the Irish with no other object "than to create a running sore in the side of England," that may be their object, and yet it may be true also that these Irish-Americans, in their ignorance and passion, wish well to Ireland, which the Duke denied. They are probably ignorant enough and furious enough to think that nothing could do so much good to Ireland as the humiliation and disgrace of England. Does not the Duke of Westminster in this speech express just that passionate feeling on the part of Englishmen which we justly condemn when it is exhibited by Irish-Americans ?
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