On the same day, Mr. Balfour received the deputation from
Belfast which had previously waited on Mr. Gladstone, and,. apologising for Mr. Chamberlain's very reluctant absence on important business, assured it that he gave the heads of commerce in that great city credit for understanding their own concerns. He did not believe, he said, that in the history of the world a great legislative change of this kind ever had been forced down the throats of a country in which the whole of the industrial classes were heartily opposed to it. As, he remarked that all the leaders of the Nationalist Party had at different times expressed the conviction that Ireland ought to be absolutely independent of England, and had enunciated doctrines with regard to the land which could only be described as doctrines of public plunder, he felt satisfied that Belfast took the common-sense view of the question when it held that to hand over Ireland to the power of those men, was in effect preparing for commercial ruin.
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