Sir Richard Webster has crushed all other speech-makers —to the
instruction, if not exactly to the relief of mankind— but Sir J. Lubbock's speech of Thursday, though too much condensed in the reporting, is well worth reading. It is full of weighty little queries. Why, for example, does not Mr. Gladstone, if he is such a thorough Home-ruler as to want Home-rule for Scotland and Wales as well as Ireland, want it for England too ? If everybody is to sit at Westminster, England will be governed by everybody,—or, rather, we might say, by everybody too little respected to be elected to his local Parliament. Then, if Ireland was to pay a fixed contribution to the Imperial Treasury, where would war-taxes fall ? Clearly on England, which will be the Issachar of the Empire. Ireland, he proceeded, could not be called unanimous for Home-rule, for one-third of the popula- tion, including an overwhelming majority of the clergy and Dissenting ministers, the prosperous tradesmen, the medical men, and the sturdy yeomanry of the North, detested Home- rule. He had been connected. during his whole life with com- merce, and he believed the root of Irish discontent to be economical. So do we; but if Dutchmen had Ireland, they would be too rich to be borne.
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