Mr. Morley on Saturday made a speech at Northampton remarkable
for the confidence with which be predicted the con- cession of Home-rule to Ireland within twelve months, and for the increasing vehemence with which he denounced any proposal to concede self-government in localities. The new local bodies, he contended, would be manned by the National League. The local bodies would have power of rating, which was power of taxing ; and if a Parliament in Dublin would frighten away capital, so would local bodies with such power. If the Parlia- ment in Dublin would use its powers to secure Separation, so would the local bodies use their rights. No such concession could restore order in a country where juries would not convict, or the sufferers give evidence against moonlighters. Mr. Morley's testimony seems to us final against the grant of powers, either to local bodies or to a central one,:which must of necessity be, in spirit, the quintessence of the smaller councils. Why does he think a Dublin Parliament would put moonlighters down, when a local Council will not ? Is not his real thought this, that disorder cannot be suppressed, but that the responsibility of it can be shifted from the shoulders of the British Parliament to that of an Irish one ? That argument is a little like the defence of a Chinaman in the Colonies. He had murdered another Chinaman, and admitted the fact, but pleaded that he ought not to be punished. "If Chinaman kill Chinaman, what that to the English Judge P"
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