Mr. Balfour at once seized upon this assertion, and remarked
on the very peculiar sort of " moral " force which had been at the bottom of the Land League, the National League, the boycotting, and the "Plan of Cam- paign." He insisted that when a partnership is dissolved, the partners have equal rights to be heard ; and that though a
majority in the -United Kingdom is enough for the exercise of the authority of the United Kingdom, you no sooner ask for what amounts to a dissolution of the partnership with Great Britain, than Great Britain resumes her freedom to consider and assert her own separate interest. He maintained that the Irish Nationalists are now really dictating terms to Mr. Gladstone in precisely the fashion which Mr. Gladstone him- self pointed out as most dangerous to the welfare of the State in 1885. He contrasted the demands of that section of the Irish Party which had been squared with those of the Irish Party which had not been squared ; and he asked in what sense Mr. Gladstone possessed the confidence of the various sections of his party. Could he secure their following his lead, as a General can secure the support of his army As for the demand that all the evicted tenants should be restored,—there were, he said, certainly more than two thou- sand of them, and perhaps more than three thousand,—the demand was utterly absurd and impossible. No Bill to re- instate them and turn out those who are now firmly established in their places, could by any possibility be passed. The evicted' tenants are to be soothed by promises which cannot be ful- filled. The electors of this country, he predicted, would very soon indeed be sick of that Nationalist domination over Mr. Gladstone's policy, to which his party is doomed.
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