The rest of the debate of Thursday night was chiefly
re- markable for the concurrence of testimony it produced that. the Home-rule Bill is intended to bring about a purely nominal supremacy of the supreme Parliament and Adminis- tration, and a substantial independence of both. Mr. John Redmond ridiculed the notion of finality, insisted on the necessity of non-interference, and derided the financial provisions as quite inadequate. Mr. Wallace declared it to be the best feature of the Bill, that interference from Westminster would be quite impracticable ; and Mr. Courtney, in his rather academic and Olympian speech, treated this as practically admitted on all hands. Moreover, there was a general agreement that the Bill points first to a dissolution and then to a federation of the United Kingdom, as its real and ultimate goal, as the only solution which has any practical logic in it. But for the present the Bill does not pretend to initiate this mighty revolution. Mr. Wallace's speech con- tained a very amusing attack on the proposal to keep the Irish Members for all purposes, which he regarded as absurd, im- moral, and almost inconceivable in the recklessness of its impudence. Scotland, he said, would "blaze up like Pande- monium" at any such proposal.
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