19 OCTOBER 1889, Page 2

Speaking at Bury on Tuesday, Lord Spencer dwelt upon the

difference between coercion as applied by Liberals and Unionists to Ireland. The legislation of the former was temporary, of the latter permanent. "While," said the speaker, "exceptional legislation might be advantageously applied as regarded the stamping out of crime, he doubted whether it could be successfully applied to institutions which had the support of the people of the country." Yet while Mr. Balfour took no legislative power to dissolve the National League, Mr. Gladstone obtained and used authority to do so, and even to put down hostile newspapers. "The serious evil in Ireland," continued Lord Spencer, "was the dislike, the hatred of the population to the Government which was set up The whole system of English government must be altered. The system of governing Ireland from London must be removed root and branch." Yet Lord Spencer is quite prepared to set up a form of govern- ment which the people of Protestant Ulster will hate ten times more bitterly than those of the South hate that of the United Kingdom. It is quite right for Ireland to object to being governed from London, but for Belfast and the Ulster Plantation to object to being governed from Dublin is ridiculous, if, indeed, not actually criminal.