Mr. Gladstone has written a letter to Mr. L. Dillon,
in which he includes the remarkable statement that Lord Hartington "appears to make the astonishing demand that the Irish people shall abandon all its national aspirations before it can be per.. mitted to receive a decent system of local or county govern- ment." We wonder where that "appears." The reference " appears " to be to Lord Hartington's Saturday's speech to his Lancashire constituents ; but in that speech he took pains to contradict most positively that imputation, and to say that the Irish people ought to be allowed, as they are allowed, to agitate in every constitutional form for Home-rule, or any other national aspiration that they desire; though deliberately unconstitutional modes of agitation, like the "Plan of Campaign" and boycotting, ought to be abandoned before their powers of local government are extended. Lord Harlington could hardly have been more explicit, or have said anything more emphatically at issue with what Mr. Gladstone attributes to him.
Previous page
