J much more, a reasonable and sensible statesman, as his
admirable administration of the Foreign Office proved. But in his speech this day week at Airdrie, near Glasgow, he certainly did. not display himself in this aspect ; and but that we feel sure of his respect for his audience, we should have almost been inclined to think that he was amusing himself at their expense, by showing how easy it was to impose anything upon them as satisfactory political argument. Lord Derby's objections to Irish Home-rule as modified by the retention of the Irish Members at West- minster, would, said Lord Rosebery, only be valid if three highly improbable contingencies were all to happen. First, the fixed hostility of the Irish race towards the British Government must continue ; next, the Irish Members must continue, after the concession of Home-rule, to take an active part in the Imperial Parliament ; and, thirdly, besides taking that active part, they must all pull together as a united party. Now, according to Lord Rosebery, all these three suppositions are bare possibilities, and not even probabilities at all. And what did Lord Rosebery adduce in proof that the Irish Members will not give us any trouble after they have once got a Legislature of their own ? Nothing more remarkable than a speech by Mr. O'Brien at Mallow forswearing all the hostility he might formerly have entertained to the British people, and a speech of Mr. John O'Connor's at Stockton to a similar effect. We should have given Lord Rosebery credit for more judgment,—at all events for not presenting remarks which have all the intrinsic levity of mere Labouchereisms, without a little pains to make them seem plausible. What does Lord Rosebery suppose to have been the ground of the Liberal demand to which Mr. Gladstone at length, and we imagine rather reluctantly, yielded, that the Irish Members should be retained at Westminster ? Was it not taken for the purpose of asserting and main- taining the full authority of the Imperial Parliament in Irish affairs ? Would the concession of that demand have produced any effect at all unless it had been believed that if the Irish Members were thus retained, the Parliament at Westminster would be both competent and resolute to wield the power it thus claimed, and to veto acts of injustiee committed by the Irish Legislature or the Irish Administration ? Was not the whole significance of the demand this,—that the Liberals" felt it utterly base to hand over Ireland to the rule of a Nationalist majority, after the Irish minority had been solemnly promised, as they were by Mr. Gladstone, that their interests would be more than adequately secured by the large majority of English and Scotch representatives in the Imperial Parliament whose sympathies would always incline to the side of the Irish minority rather than to that of the Irish majority ? Well, if, as is notorious, that was the true meaning of this demand which Mr. Gladstone has conceded, can Lord Rosebery maintain with a grave face, that on the occasions on which the British Parliament may happen to review Irish contro- versies, the Irish representatives will be likely either—(1), to sympathise with the wishes of the British people ; or (2), to stay in Ireland and tamely allow the British Parliament to reverse what they have done, at its discretion ; or (3), to show themselves so divided amongst themselves when they come over, that they could not turn the scale against any British Ministry that disapproved and proposed to disallow their Irish policy? We do not like to speak disrespectfully of any.drift of Lord Rosebery's, or we should say that talk of this kind is simply nonsense,—political talk meant to pass muster at a meeting, but not meant to pass muster in any sagacious mind. The retention of the Irish Members was demanded simply and solely for the purpose of pre- venting or reversing the adoption of any policy in Ireland which the people of the United Kingdom as a whole might deem dangerous or unjust. And if it were not to be used for that end, the retention of the Irish representatives at Westminster would be a mere sham, and, as we hope and believe, a sham which the people of Great Britain would not tolerate. But supposing that to be so, it does not take a man of Lord Rosebery's capacity to see that all his three "bare possibilities become moral cer- tainties. The Irish representatives might forswear their abstract hostility to the British people as freely as they liked ; they would find their concrete hostility sharp enough if they expected to have their Irish policy reversed at Westminster. They might be content enough to stay in Dublin while they felt sure of not having their plans overruled at Westminster ; but they would flock over here fast enough so soon as they saw that that catastrophe was impending over them. And they would, if we may judge the future by the past, enter into any combinations they could contrive with British parties in order to turn out or hamper a Government that was disposed to thwart their plans. And as for their not pulling together in such a Parliament, what would there be to prevent them from acting in such a Parliament precisely on the same principles on which they have acted in the present and the last two Parliaments ? Lord Rosebery can hardly be speaking seriously when he so nearly trangresses the boundary between sense and nonsense as he did in these remarks.
And then Lord Rosebery fortifies his position by telling us of Mr. O'Brien's professions of good feeling at Mallow, and Mr. John O'Connor's at Stockton ! Very likely they felt what they said, for, of course, they feel kindly enough just now to the Gladstonian Party, for whose success at the polls they are doing all in their power. But what on earth has that to do with the matter ? Probably Mr. O'Brien and. Mr. John O'Connor are almost in love with Gladstonian constituencies, so long as Gladstonian con- stituencies are playing all their, cards for them. But if the time ever comes when the representatives of these same constituencies insist on reversing the action of (say) Mr. O'Brien's Irish Administration, human nature will not be human nature, certainly Mr. O'Brien's nature will not be Mr. O'Brien's nature, if the old wrath does not flame out again in double brilliancy. Why, even at the present time, Mr. O'Brien, with all this blatant love for England, will not concede so much to English opinion as to abandon that "Plan of Campaign" which even English Liberals do not dare to defend, and which his own leader, Mr. Parnell, thinks it prudent to repudiate. What are we to think of the conciliatory disposition of an Irish politician who will not even concede a hair's-breadth to the unanimous disapprobation of the head. of his Church, the head of his party, and the opinion of his most active allies ? Lord Rosebery should think twice before giving the sanction of his great name and reputation to stuff of this kind. "These shows are glass, the very sun shines through them."
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