On Saturday last Lord Derby made an exceedingly interesting speech
at Southport at a Council Meeting of the Lancashire Division of the National Unionist Association. He was a firm believer, he said, in the attitude that Sir Edward Carson had taken up In regard to the Home Rule negotiations. He also declared that Mr. Redmond had shown patriotism equal to anything that had been shown by the politicians of this country. The Home Rule Act, he went on, was on the Statute Book and not a man in his belief would vote for wiping it off. Therefore he asked whether we could not arrange terms acceptable to both parties. States- manship in this country would indeed be barren if they could not before the end of the war come to a satisfactory arrangement in regard to Ireland. When the war was ended the country was not going back to the old political party system. The Empire had been brought together by the war and must be kept together in peace.
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