Mr. Bright has written a letter to the Rev. T.
O'Malley, the author of a little work in favour of Home-rule, on the " Home- rule" plan, in which he declares that Mr. Mitchell's proposal for absolute Irish independence is rea.onable compared with that for federation and Home-rule, if there were any prospect what- ever of getting either the one scheme or the other really passed into law. Even if you allow the maximum number of Irish who are virtually disaffected to the present system, say four millions out of the five and a half millions of her people, that gives only a million of men, and of these not one-half have any knowledge of politics and public affairs. Yet besides the Irish minority who are opposed to the scheme, the whole people of England and Scotland will never consent to a system which forces them to accept for themselves local Parliaments which they don't want, in order to accommodate themselves to the Irish demand for an Imperial Federation equally far from their wish. The scheme is incurably clumsy, and there is no chance what- ever of finding any popular force to give it even politi- cal significance. The Home-rulers of course disavow Mr. O'Malley as an adequate exponent of their views, but whether his exposition be adequate or inadequate, those views necessarily involve the difficulties pointed out by Mr. Bright.
Previous page
