Lord Derby's speech at Hengler's Circus, Liverpool, on Tuesday, on
taking the chair at the meeting summened to hear Lord Hartington, was one of those remarkable efforts in terse, lucid, and judicial exposition of which he is certainly by far the greatest master among statesmen and politicians. It was passionless, brief, and yet almost exhaustive. No issue, said Lord Derby, equal in importance to the Home-rule issue, had been before the country in the memory of any man living. Referring to the demands pressed for Scottish and Welsh Home-rule as well as Irish, Lord Derby said :—" If any man believes that in these two little islands there is room for four separate National Governments, with one Imperial Govern- ment over them all,—five Cabinets and five Parliaments,—and that all these Cabinets and Parliaments can continue to work together, he must be of an exceptionally sanguine disposition, or must possess the happy faculty which some politicians have of being able to shut their eyes very hard. You are some- times told that there will be no peace till you have conceded Home-rule to Ireland. I answer, Will there be peace ? ' Are any limits to be set to the powers of an Irish Parliament ? If there are, those limits will supply material for fresh agitation. If there are not, how long will even two independent Legislatures go on side by side ? Are we at West- minster to have power to overrule what is done in Dublin ? If so, there is a grievance ready made. And if not, what link remains between the two countries ? For the Executive in both must depend on its Parliament ; and if the Parliaments diverge, how can the Executives agree ?" If any statesman can confute that concise argument of Lord Derby's, he must command intellectual resources higher than any of those to which we have access.
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