Mr. Gladstone has written a letter to one of his
constituents in Dalkeith, which was read at a meeting held at Dalkeith on Thursday, in which he recognises afresh the general desire expressed in the Liberal Party that the Irish representatives should be retained in the Parliament at Westminster, and declares his willingness to accede to that wish, adding that he expects a good many Dissentient Liberals " will now begin to find that the retention will be highly mischievous." Assuredly we find it so, but do not now begin, to find it so. We have always found it so. If there is to be Irish Home-rule at all, Home-rule in Ireland should be tried on the pure Colonial principle. Anything more absurd than attempting to recon- sider and revolutionise at Westminster all that is done in an independent Irish Legislature, we can hardly imagine. That would be a happy combination of all the evils of Irish Home- rule with all the evils of British interference, and would leave Ireland "blocking the way " more completely than ever. That plan will never work.
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