Sir Henry James delivered a fine speech at the Liberal
Union Club on Tuesday. He said that the Liberal Unionists had endured the winter of their discontent; but referring to the election of Mr. Fitzwilliam for the Doncaster Division of Yorkshire, he declared that it had been made almost "glorious summer by this son of York." He insisted, as we did last week, that Mr. Gladstone had no right to ask the country to support him in giving Home-rule to Ireland without defining the principle on which it is to be given. This last measure was rejected by all parties, Mr. Gladstone's own party having accepted it only on the understanding that it should be entirely recast. Was it not, then, essential that the- constituencies should know how it was to be recast before they were asked to vote on it " Aye " or " No "? He strengthened this position by producing Lord Thring's testimony that the supremacy of the Parliament at Westminster over the statutory Parliament proposed for Dublin was not straightforwardly asserted in the Bill of 1886; and Sir Henry James argued that if this supremacy had been asserted plainly and categorically in the Bill of 1886, that Bill would, in all probability, have been rejected by the popular party in Ireland. All the same, it was essential that before the next General Election the people of the United Kingdom should know clearly what sort of new constitutional measure was to be presented to them. After some brilliant thrusts at Sir William Harcourt, Sir Henry James concluded by predicting that Liberal Unionism would win by virtue of what the Chartist rhymester had appealed to as the help of his need and the gods of his creed,—namely, "energy, faith, and time."
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