The Duke of Devonshire has made two very remarkable speeches
in Scotland on Mr. Gladstone's Home-rule Bill ; one at Edinburgh yesterday week, chiefly upon Mr. Gladstone's authority as a statesman, and one at Dalkeith on Saturday, on the policy of the present measure. In the former speech the Duke showed how invariably Mr. Gladstone had been mistaken in expecting that the discontent of Ireland would be allayed by his various measures. He thought the Irish policy of 1869- 1873 had removed all Irish grievances, and yet in 1885 the Irish people, with an extended suffrage, showed their grati- tude to him by .returning the largest majority ever known, pledged to oppose him. Then, again, about Irish land, he stated in 1886 that the honour of the English people was pledged to settle the Land question before handing over Ireland to an Irish Parliament. But now he asserts that this honourable obligation, though binding in 1886, is not in any sense binding on him now, though he gives no reason for that distinction. Has a statesman so vacillating in his views of honour and policy, asked the Duke, any claim to be regarded as deserving of the highest deference in re- lation to Irish policy ? Of the second and still more striking speech, delivered on Saturday at Dalkeith, we have said enough in another column.
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