The Duke of Devonshire, in addressing the Council of the
Liberal Unionist Association on Wednesday, very wisely impressed upon its members that it would be quite a mistake to relax their vigilance in relation to Home-rule only because there had been no Parliamentary struggle on the subject this year. The Duke is quite right, though many foolish Liberal Unionists are trying to make believe very much that he is wrong. Home-rule is not only not abandoned, but it could not be abandoned by the Gladstonian party so long as that party depends, as it does now, and must do for a long time to come, whatever may be the result of the next General Election, on the votes of the Irish Home-rulers. No majority large enough to render the Government indepen- dent of the Irish Home-rulers is at all on the cards, and besides, the pledges to the Irishmen have been earnestly and repeatedly renewed, so as to stamp with political ignominy anything like a breach of faith. Indeed, every Irish speech on such subjects as the Evicted Tenants Bill is packed full of denunciations of English-made laws. To treat the danger of Home-rule as past and gone, just because the Irish party saw that if they valued their alliance with the Gladstonians, they must not absorb all the time of the Legislature, would be the most abject folly. Home-rule lurks behind the Irish Alliance as surely as black Care behind the horseman. Those who go about saying that all fear of Home-rule is over because no Bill for establishing it has been introduced this Session, have either the most ephemeral of imaginations, or the most credulous of judgments. If the utmost vigilance is not maintained, we are far more likely to suffer from the year's silence on the subject, than is the Irish party. They are wide awake, but we are always dozing off.
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