Mr. Morley farther asserted that if the present Government were
really restoring liberty to Irish citizens to do what is lawful, they would have seen the result in the turn of the electoral tide in Ireland, and the displacement of Parnellite Members by Members representing the view of the Govern- ment. That assumes that the majority of the Irish people wish to restore their legal liberty to the minority, which notoriously they do not. The British Government might, said Mr. Morley, just is well declare that they are restoring liberty to the British people by locking up Mr. Gladstone, as that they are restoring liberty to the Irish people by locking up Mr. John Dillon. But nobody ever pretended that the Govern- ment are restoring liberty to the Irish majority to do what the law allows them to do. The majority have ample liberty already, which they freely abuse. What is maintained is that the minority have not that liberty, and. ought to have it. When the .majority of the electors in the United Kingdom interfere to protect the minority of the Irish people against the tyranny of the majority of that people, they are only doing precisely what Mr. Gladstone assured the House of Commons in his speeches on the Reform Bill of 1885 that that British majority ought to do, and would do if the Irish majority should prove to be disposed to domineer over the Irish minority.
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