Mr. Justin McCarthy delivered a lecture in London on Wednesday
on what he meant by Home-rule. He meant by it an Irish Legislature as independent as the Legislature of the Canadian Dominion. He wanted no Army, no Navy, and no right to interfere either in foreign or Imperial politics. He maintained that such a Legislature would protect the Protestant minority as completely as the English Legislature protects the minority of Catholics ; but utterly declined to discuss the question of Protection, as too trumpery to enter into the great argument. We agree, more or less, about the religious diffi- culty ; but Mr. McCarthy does not even touch the more burning question of what a Home-rule majority invested with legislative power would do with the land. Would they, or would they not, con- fiscate the hundred millions or so of mortgages now held, mainly by Englishmen, upon the security of Irish land ? Mr. Justin McCarthy, junior, after his father had spoken, got up to saythat the Colonial scheme was the minimum which the Irish would demand, and that, for himself, he regretted that Ireland had not been able " to win by force of arms the independence she was about to obtain by Constitutional measures." Most Englishmen will agree with Mr. McCarthy, junior. Insurrection is a far more respectable way of gaining independence than entering a Parliament only to discredit it. When the speaker, however, is a little older, he will probably pay more respect to the wisdom of Mr. Lowell, and avoid prophecy.
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