The results of 'Mr. O'Donnell's threats were apparent enough, when
Mr. Shaw, M.P. for Cork County, brought on the proposal for an inquiry into the Home-rule question on Tuesday, in a very able and studiously moderate speech, in which, after urging the necessity of encouraging the spirit of self-dependence in Ireland, he said that if the Home-rulers found that they could not carry out the plan of federation pure and simple, "they were not such fools as to tie themselves down to a cut-and-dried scheme brought forward by any one man, and say that that was the best, and nothing else would they have." The motion was seconded by Mr. King-Harman, in an equally moderate tone ; and then Mr. Forster got up, and de- livered a speech of very great ability, to the most important argu- ment of which we have referred elsewhere,—a speech favourable to local self-government in the limited and smaller sense, but wholly rejecting the plan for a reconstruction of the Empire, and com- menting very strongly on the proposal to terrorise Liberals to vote against their convictions by threatening them with a solid Irish vote against them. Mr. Fawcett took up the same point in a still more severe tone, and said the Liberals would rather remain out of office till the youngest of them had grown grey,
and had rather give support when it was necessary to the Con- servatives enabling them to resist the Home-rulers, than yield to this kind of dictation. And the debate ended in Mr. Gladstone's showing, to Sir Michael Beach's great discomfiture, that he had given no support to the Liberal candidate who had pledged him- self to support the inquiry on the Home-rule side in Salford. Mr. O'Donnell's letter certainly changed the attitude of the liberals from one of doubtful and hesitating dislike, to one of active and convinced defiance.
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