On Wednesday, Mr. Henry Fowler, in addressing a large Gladstonian
gathering in the Guildhall, Plymouth, declared that during the past two months there had been " two well- known currents running through the Conservative Party." The " forward " section was anxious for a rural programme, the other for Irish Local Government. As to Home-rule, Mr. Fowler declared that " they did not mean the Crown to be the connecting-link between this country and Ireland; they meant the Imperial Parliament to be the connecting-link. Lord Salisbury spoke of setting up an ultra-Protectionist Ireland. He had wondered whether Lord Salisbury had ever read the Home-rule Bill of 1886, and now he was satisfied that he never had. That Bill prohibited Ireland in the clearest pos- sible language from imposing any customary duties whatever, and he ventured to say that any future Home-rule Bill would do the same." This resurrection of the Bill of 1886 should be noted by Unionists. As a rule, when we base an argu- ment upon that Bill, we are told that it is dead and buried, and that we are guilty of misrepresentation in declaring that it embodies the Gladstonian idea of Home-rule. The Glad. stonians cannot be allowed to represent the Bill as both alive and defunct. That would be a characteristic a little too Hibernian.
