In the course of his speech, Mr. Gladstone dwelt at
some length on the immense advantages to Scotland and Wales of the great extension of the Home-role movement there which he expected to arise out of the long resistance to his Irish policy. But on this we have dealt sufficiently in another column. We may add that he expressed very significantly his dread of acting in too conspicuous concert with Mr. Parnell, declaring that, so far as regarded current events, his communications with Mr. Parnell had been " very few and slight," though if more were necessary, "we should not be ashamed or indisposed to enter into them." He did not say, what must have been present to his mind as " an old Parliamentary hand," that it would very mush weaken his position at the polls if he were known to be in close concert with Mr. ParnelL He put it entirely on his wish to leave Mr. Parnell free to avail himself of any disposition which the Conservatives might evince to turn round and adopt Home-role,—a change of front which he must know to be all but impossible, if for no other reason, because the rank and file of the Conservative Party would be disgraced by it in a way that no party in the world has ever yet allowed itself to be disgraced.
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