Mr. J. Morley, who replied to Lord Hartiugton, hardly satis-
fied the expectation of his friends. He seemed troubled and nervous, and did not rise to his own usual level ; but he endea- voured to be even franker than usual, and did not, we think, make the attempt to terrorise the House of which he is accused. He only referred to the encouragement which the refusal of the Bill would give to the dynamitards to show that he shirked no part of the Irish subject, and, as he said, took " no rose-pink view of Irish matters." He challenged the Opposition to say what they really thought, which was that Irishmen were in- capable of self-government ; but held that even a suspension of representation would be preferable to the policy of the last fifty years. For the rest, he attacked Mr. Chamberlain's scheme of Federation, defended the exclusion of Irishmen from Westminster on the ground that the history of Ireland disabled them from taking the necessary interest in the Empire, declared his belief that an Irish Parliament might be competent, and asked how that pressing necessity, the government of Ireland, was to be met. All through the speech were signs of a curious con- flict between the speaker's abstract convictions and his historic knowledge. He thought representative government ought to regenerate Ireland, but all the same he knew it would not. The Irishmen did not enjoy the speech at all.
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