The inaugural dinner of the Liberal Union Club was given
on Wednesday, and Lord Hartington delivered an important speech. He announced the failure of the Round-Table Con- ference—the causes of which he apparently knew, but held him- self unable to reveal—and expressed his fear that reunion was now hopeless. Neither Mr. Gladstone nor his lieutenants would make any serious concession, and while the Unionists were prepared to grant large powers of local self-government to Ireland, and even some legislative powers, if necessary, for local ends, they would not surrender the control of the Civil and Criminal Law, or of the Executive. He held, there- fore, that a reconciliation would have to be based on a false use of words, and to such a reconciliation he would be no party. The Unionist Party must organise for itself, diffusing its principles by every possible means, and meanwhile must bear the severe test to which it was pat by the Coercion Bill. He thought the members of the party bound to give a fair consideration to that Bill, and to remember that if its acceptance placed a heavy responsibility on their shoulders, its rejection might involve one still heavier,—viz., the responsibility of leaving the condition of Ireland such as it is at the present time. He might have also added that it would be a complete extinction of the party, for, on the Dissolution thus rendered necessary, the Tories who had been deserted, and the Liberals who have been offended, would alike oppose the Unionists.
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