The Duke went on to criticise Sir William Harconrt's state-
ment that he wished for a kind of Home-rule in Ireland which would secure to her the administration of her domestic affairs without endangering the best interests of the rest of the Empire. But this, said the Duke, is very like saying that he desires to find a square peg which will fit neatly into a round hole,—which, again, is another way of saying that the peg should not, after all, be made so very square, nor the hole so very round. That is, he wishes to reconcile incompatible things, to give the Irish people the satisfaction of managing their own affairs without so managing them as to weaken the United Kingdom, to make their own financial arrangements without interfering with our finance, to regulate their own Courts of Justice, and to govern their own police without upset- ting the English confidence in their impartiality, or the respect of their own Irish minority for their system of justice. This is another way of saying that Sir William Harcourt is intent on doing what so many statesmen have attempted in vain,— namely, to achieve the impossible feat of both having their cake and eating it too.
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