But this was a mere parenthesis in his speech, the
greater part of which was a most powerful demonstration that Mr. Glad- stone had taught the country to rely on the word of an Irish leader who is now by his own admirers admitted to have been deceiving us in saying that Ireland would accept the Bill of 1886 as a final settlement of all her political claims ; that Mr. Gladstone had endeavoured to pass Ireland over to the govern- ment of men whom he now proclaims to be altogether unworthy of political trust ; that he had denied that any Dublin Parlia- ment must rest either on the Fenians or on the priests, whereas recently the whole struggle in Ireland has been between the Fenians and the priests, the priests having secured the victory; and that he still asks us to put the country into the care of a political physician who himself confesses, and even maintains, that his whole diagnosis of the disease was wrong, and whose remedies would, in the opinion of the Unionists, have gravely augmented the disease he proposed to himself to cure.
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