25 JUNE 1892, Page 2

The Duke of Devonshire made a very impressive speech at

Bath on Wednesday, on one particular portion of which, the grave responsibility of either leaving the new Ireland without force to give effect to its legislation in the face of a resolutely hostile Ulster, or of providing her with such a force, we have dwelt sufficiently in another column. But he also showed very forcibly how rapidly the Gladstonian promises to carry popular or ostensibly popular legislation, had multiplied since 1885, " in direct proportion to the impossibility. of any one of them being realised." He compared the " Authorise& Programme " of 1885 with the " Newcastle Programme " now dangled before the eyes of the electors ; and pointed out that Welsh and Scotch Disestablishment, which were then rele- gated to the dim and distant future, " One man, one vote," the payment of Members, a new Local Government Bill, and the abolition of the time-honoured Corporation of London, had all been added to the programme since it had been shown that Home-rule for Ireland would be very difficult to carry, and that Home-rule must be sweetened by promises of more palatable measures to follow it. And yet Mr. Gladstone avows with perfect candour that to Irish Home-rule everything else must be postponed, so that there is no chance at all of any one of the most tempting of these bribes being really attained in any Parliament which has to solve the virtually insoluble problem of Irish Home-rule. The more hopeless it becomes that any of these ulterior measures should be passed, the more recklessly are the promises to pass them showered upon the constituencies. Generosity in words increases, as the impossibility of making the words good becomes more and more apparent.