In the House of Lords, the Address in answer to
the Speech from the Throne was moved by the Earl of Onslow and seconded by Lord de Ros, after which Lord Granville asked Lord Salisbury why he had not waited till October to meet Parliament, rather than meet it with no policy to announce. He pressed for a general outline of Lord Salisbury's Irish policy, and twitted him with having been indignant with Mr. Gladstone for asking for a delay of six weeks in producing his Irish policy; while he himself, ou the contrary, appears to be contemplating a delay of six months, and that the six months which cover the winter,—the moat anxious time in Ireland,—boforo producing his, The Duke of Argyll followed in a pretty sharp attack on the late Govern- ment. He especially dwelt on Mr. Gladstone's very strong language in 1871, when criticising Mr. Isaac Butt :—" Cau any sensible man, any rational man, suppose that at this time of day, in the condition of this world, we are going to disintegrate the great capital institutions of this country for the purpose of making ourselves ridiculous in the sight of mankind, and crippling any power we possess for bestowing benefits on the inhabitants of Ireland P" Language of this kind did not look quite like a fifteen years' suspension of judgment on the subject of Home-rule. The Duke likened Mr. Gladstone's Bill to a bill sent in by a veterinary surgeon " for curing the mare until it died," and he regarded the great evil in Ireland as the fact that there has been "a weakness and insecurity and uncertainty as to the very fundamental doctrines of human society" in Ireland which the late Government had encouraged.
