Lord Rosebery made a poor and rather tedious speech at
Scarborough on Wednesday, on the Irish Question. He said that he did not attach much importance to by-elections, but talked• about the victory at Govan for at least a quarter of an hour. He said that " half-a-dozen statesmen meeting in a room, could in a week settle• a plan which would be perfectly practicable, and would adjust the relations between Ireland and England." Why, we have Mr. Gladstone's own authority for the assertion that these statesmen would have to devise a method of separating Irish and English business which it surpasses" the wit of man" to contrive. Finally, Lord' Rosebery quoted, an opinion expressed by Lord. Beaconsfield to Mr. Pierrepont, that Ireland, might be federated with England, and that coercion had failed. Lord Beaconsfield had doubtless (in private) bored the compass of political' faith on all conceivable subjects. His private suggestions of this kind are worth about as much as the views which he puts into the mouth of Coningsby or Sidonia—that is, for practical purposes, nothing at all.
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