Mr. Walter Long was the principal speaker at the annual
meeting of the Irish Unionist Alliance in Dublin on Wednesday, and devoted most of his remarks to the Irish policy of the Government. The only straightforward and honest course, he contended, would have been to come to Parliament with a Home-rule Bill. Instead of that, they declared they were not a Home-rule Government, while hoping to get Home-rule passed by instalments. We must be prepared, therefore, said Mr. Long, for the production of an adroitly framed measure which, though it did not say it in so many words, would all the same mean Home-rule with all its dangers. Mr. Long denounced the proposal that some separate arrangement should be made to pacify Ulster as a most ignorant, cowardly, and unworthy suggestion. As for the alternative of co- ordination, while he admitted that there was room for improvement in administration, nobody believed for one single instant that a measure of decentralisation or an alteration of existing Boards would satisfy the Irish Nationalists.
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