On Mr. Chamberlain's powerful reply to Lord Rosebery's recent Birmingham
speech, we have dwelt enough in another column ; we may add here that on the Ulster question be thought Mr. Gladstone's mode of speaking of the hardy Protestants and Presbyterians of Ulster as if they were a mere handful of misguided men, or, at another time, as if they were a set of fools and knaves, though they really con- stitute nearly a third of the population of Ireland, appeared to him a mistake of "incredible stupidity." These were curses which would come home to roost. The Ulster Convention is not the mancenvre of men who are, as Sir William Harcourt says, "whistling to keep up their courage." On the contrary, it is a political symptom which reminds one more of the Convention called in the American Colonies before the Revolu- tion, than of any less political event. Yet Lord Rosebery, who makes so light of the transfer of Ulster from one allegiance to another, was eloquent on the unfairness of transferring Heligoland (a little island perhaps three-quarters of a mile long, with a population of some two thousand) from one allegiance to another -without the Heligola,nders' own consent. Mr. Chamberlain is right ;—Lord Rosebery is clearly one of those who strain at a gnat while they swallow a camel.
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