Of Lord Hartington's remarks on the pressure of business in
the House of Commons, we have said enough elsewhere ; but his speech as a whole was a very impressive one,— especially his demonstration that an Irish Legislature could not properly be trusted, even in Mr. Gladstone's own estima- tion, if we may still regard him as holding the views he held in 1386, to be just to the different parties in Ireland, and to dis- charge the responsible duties which the British Parliament have undertaken towards the whole Irish people. How can we trust such a Legislature to settle their land question justly, said Lord Hartington, when even Mr. Gladstone con- tended in 1886 that it must be settled for them before even the Legislature was granted? How can we trust the Irish Legislature to settle its education question justly, when even Mr. Gladstone's Constitution imposed a.. veto on a certain class of•educational enactments ? How can we trust them to. settle commerce and taxation justly, when Mr. Gladstone's Constitu- tion proposed to withdraw entirely from the Legislature the settlement of the tariff, and when, moreover, everybody knows that the tenant-farmers would monopolise so large a portion of the representation that Irish merchants would utterly dis- trust such a Legislature as Ireland would elect ? And as for the British Parliament retaining its overruling power, how could that be put in force by a mere army of occupation, when all the police, all the Magistrates, and all the Judges, would be appointed by the Irish Administration ?
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