Mr. Childers and Mr. Shaw-Lefevre were the two ex-Cabinet Ministers
who supported Mr. Parnell. Mr. Childers warmly panegyrised him. Mr. Shaw-Lefevre talked of "the infamy" of the Times. Thereby these gentlemen qualified themselves, so far as Irish politics go, to be within the range of Mr. Labouchere's first Cabinet, provided always, of course, that Mr. Labouchere should ever form a Cabinet, and that if he does, he should stand in need of such colleagues. The only attempt at Irish humour was Mr. Justin MoCarthy's remark that the Tories and Liberal Unionists reminded him of "a brace of dogs who were so lean and poor that it took two of them to get out one bark. They would soon find that their bark was worse than their bite, and before long they would neither have power to bark and bite, nor even to backbite." For that last operation we hope that Unionists have no power even now, and that it is a kind of moral disease which we may not even be competent to contract from those who already suffer from it.
Previous page
