Mr. Bright's address to the electors of the Central Division
of Birmingham is one of great dignity and power. He declines to pledge himself to the " principle " of the Home-rule Bill,—a principle "which may be innocent or most dangerous, as it may be explained or insisted on in the future Bills." "I cannot give any such pledge. The experience of the past three months does not increase my confidence in the wisdom of the Administration, or of their policy with respect to the future government of Ireland. We have before us a principle which is not explained by its author or its supporters, and I will not pledge myself to what I do not understand or what I cannot approve." He disapproves altogether the existence of two Legislative Assemblies in the United Kingdom, and believes that" no Irish Parliament can be as powerful or as just in Ireland as the United Parliament sitting in Westminster." "My six years' experience" of the Irish Parliamentary Party, "of their language in the House of
Commons, and of their deeds in Ireland, makes it impossible for me to consent to hand over to them the property and the rights of four millions of the Queen's subjects, our countrymen in Ireland. At least two millions of them are as loyal as the population of your town, and I will be no party to a measure which will thrust them from the generosity and justice of the United and Imperial Parliament" That is in "the grand style," if ever an election address was.
