Mr. Plunket made a vigorous speech at the Corn Exchange,
Devizes, on Tuesday, at a meeting held to celebrate the elevation of Sir Thomas Bates= to the Peerage, to which he now belongs under the title of Lord Deramore. Mr. Plunket recited the language of Mr. Parnell last year in addressing his constituents at Cork. The restoration of Grattan's Parliament, said Mr. Parnell; . was the least they could ask ; but he went on to say :—" We cannot, under the British- Constitution, ask for more than the restoration of Grattan's Parliament ; but no man has the right to fix the boundary to the march of a nation." Again :—" No man has a right to say to his country, Thus far shalt thou go and no farther ;' and we have never attempted to fix the ne plus ultra to the progress of Ireland's nationhood, and we never shall." In other words, Mr. Parnell indicated clearly enough that his ultimate hope was Separation. Mr. Plunket also quoted Mr. Gladstone's former denunciations of Mr. Parnell, in the days of the Land League, and he dwelt on the rumours as to Mr. Trevelyan's and Mr. Chamberlain's secession with some humour :—" I could speak strongly in favour of some of the reasonings of these gentlemen on this subject ; but, perhaps, it is better to suspend one's judgment,—for, as Sir Peter Teazle says, We live in a damned wicked world, and the fewer we praise the better.' " Perhaps even Mr. Plunket's subsequent panegyric on the Ulster Loyalists was, for a statesman who had accepted Sir Peter Teazie's epigram, an act of grave indiscretion.
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