Mr. Parnell made an able Home-rule speech on Tuesday, on
the text furnished him by the House of Lords' rejection of the Compensation for Disturbance (Irish) Bill. The Government, he said, expressed their willingness to grant liberal con- cessions in the form of County Boards, but that would only be by way of equivalence for the private-bill legislation now done at 'Westminster. No such concession would in the least affect the fact that it is impossible for a British Parliament to apply Irish ideas to Irish institutions, for this simple reason, — that the majority of the Members do not enter into Irish ideas, that they do not enter into Irish institutions, and that they are quite unable, when judged even by the Administration now in power, to under- stand the pressure of Irish emergencies. Of course, that was an argument to which Mr. Forster found it impossible to give any direct reply. He only urged that the advantages of union are so great, and the disadvantages of disunion are so great, that even if blunders be made at times, it is better so than to avoid them by sacrificing so much. And there he is quite right. There is no intrinsically greater difficulty to get over than there was in the case of Scotland. There, too, at one time, it was impossible for the British Government to apply to Scot- land Scotch ideas. There, too, the British Government was at one time thoroughly hated. In Scotland's case, too, the Act of Union was carried by very discreditable means. Yet in spite .of all this, Scotland would now as soon vote for the dissolution of the Union as for the restoration of freebooting. Why should not the same change of feeling be achieved in Ireland ?
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