This was the part of Mr. Goschen's speech on which
Lord Rosebery chiefly fastened in his acrid speech of the following day at the Anchor Society. Lord Rosebery vehemently denied that any great constitutional revolution is contemplated by the Gladstoniams. They are not going to alter Magna Charts, he said, nor Habeas Corpus, nor trial by jury, nor to abolish the Throne or Lords or Commons. They are only going to amend an Act passed alike by the Irish and the English Legis- latures, without any proper appeal to the people, eighty-nine years ago. Be it so ; but Lord Rosebery admits that they are not going to restore the old relations between England and Ireland, but are going to replace the present relations by utterly new ones, of which he can give no account and for which, therefore, he can offer no apology. Evidently he belongs to the Gladetonia.n section which is disposed to reject Federalism, and to prefer leaving the Irishmen to interfere with English and Scotch affairs, though the English and Scotch are to have no right to interfere with Irish affairs ; and he thinks that the English people will be willing to press the Irish to go on governing us in spite of our having resigned all right to interfere with them, except on the most urgent and exceptional occasions. He might as well propose to a group of men on strike, to give votes on the conduct of their strike to another group who will neither make any sacrifice for the strike, nor can derive any benefit from it,
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