Lord HaIsbury made a telling reference to Lord Rosebery. If
his speech was intended as an exhibition of tactics and diplomacy, it was a complete success, because if at some future time he were to say, spoke in favour of some measure of self-government for Ireland, but I never approved of one single.clause in this Bill,' he would be perfectly within his rights. Lord Salisbury wound up the debate for the Unionists in a well-reasoned and weighty speech, but one which contained few of those pieces of malicious irony which, as a rule, render his speeches so eminently readable. After noticing the great intellectual resource and ingenuity which the Gladstonian Peers showed in avoiding speaking of the Government Bill, Lord Salisbury successfully chaffed Lord Rosebery for not dealing with the Ulster question. He ended his speech by quoting Macaulay's fine declaration that we would never consent to Repeal,—" never till all has been staked and lost, never till the four quarters of the world have been con- vulsed by the last struggle of the great English people for their place among the nations."
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