Lord Randolph was very amusing in his denial of the
Daily News story as to the Government plan of provincial Home-rule for Ire- land. It had arisen, he said, in the fact that the editor of the Daily News is also a contributor to Punch, and that the contribution intended for the comic journal had unfortunately been inserted in the " serious " journal. "The present Government did not intend in any shape or form to grant Home-rule to Ireland, nor to become responsible for any legislation that contains the germs of Home-rule." Nevertheless, "we do intend, if we remain in office, to deal with the question of local government in Ireland," but "we do not intend to be hurried or hasty in that dealing ; we mean to be most extremely deliberate in our consideration of what is a most difficult and complicated
subject." That means, we trust, that steps will be taken to place the agrarian settlement on' a firm basis before the Government force into the hands of the Irish 'people new and powerful instruments for political agitation. The latter part of Lord Randolph's speech was occupied with his demonstration that, with eighty-five Parnellite Members and a section of the Liberal Party disposed to support them, the closure of debate at the will of the House of Commons had become an absolute necessity, if the power of the House of Commons were to survive at all. No part of Lord Randolph's speech showed so keen an appreciation of the drift of public opinion as this unflinching recantation of his old political faith.
