Lord Hartington addressed an audience of three thousand
Unionists at Nottingham on Monday. He said that the Liberal Party had become a one-man party, having changed, at Mr. Gladstone's signal, from all but unanimous repudiation of Home-rule in 1885, to enthusiastic support of it in 1887. He pointed out that even a few days ago Mr. Gladstone was pressed on all sides to explain clearly what concessions he would make to the Unionist objections, but that at Nottingham he treated these invitations as invitations to walk into a trap, and that thereupon all the pressure disappeared, and everybody applauded his sagacity in avoiding the trap. Lord Hartington declared his belief that no concessions which should leave the Irish Representative Assembly demanded by Home-rulers in any sense a national Assembly, could by any possibility meet the fundamental Unionist objection to splitting up the nation. He also criticised in severe terms Mr. Gladstone's invitation to all who cared for Scotch or Welsh Diseetablishment to become Home-rulere, as the shortest path to their end. These promises of local Diseetabliehment were, he thought, much like the promises of the authorised programme of 1:-:5, put forward to consolidate the party, but destined to be forgotten in the agony of the struggle for Home-rule.
