The third Scotch speech, delivered in Glasgow on Tuesday, opened
with a quotation from Dr. Chalmers eulogising the Irish character. Mr. Gladstone then went on to admit that the Government could think of no new security for Ulster, and that they adopted Mr. Parnell's view on that head. But he utterly disbelieved that any religions persecution in Ireland would result from Home-rule ; and of the administrative " elbowing " of Protestants out of all positions of advantage which Mr. Goschen had anticipated, he said nothing at all. He denied that the story of the Scotch Union furnishes any evidence in favour of the Irish Union, Scotland having practically always got what in reason it wanted through the Imperial Parliament ; but was not that precisely the policy which, in 1868, Mr. Gladstone pro- posed to extend also to Ireland, and of which now he has so faint-heartedly despaired ? He intimated that the Foreign Office pledge to bring back Irish representatives to discuss Imperial affairs is to be redeemed. but so redeemed "as not to interfere with the freedom of the Irish Legislature, nor with the dignity, order, and independence of the English," which is very like saying that the fox and the goose are to be left alone together under conditions which, without protecting the goose and without fettering the fox, will yet secure that the goose shall be per- fectly safe from the fox's attack. And he concluded with his usual powerful appeal for justice to Ireland. On his return to Hawarden, Mr. Gladstone made a short speech at Carlisle against the Unionist, Mr. Ferguson.
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