It is obvious that the Committee of the Home-rule Conference
held lately. in Dublin will not only have to dispense with Mr. Butt's co-operation, but may have to encounter his active oppo- sition. In a letter to the Cork Examiner, Mr. Butt points out that he always steadily resisted the proposal to embarrass any Government which should refuse Home-rule, simply because it refused it ; and he had resisted this on the express ground that it would be importing into the national struggle the worst and lowest artifices of Parliamentary life. In a word, Mr. Butt intends now, as formerly, to discount- enance the policy of the extremists, and proposes shortly to review and justify his course as leader of the Home-rule party since that party was first formed. And with Irish opinion in that rather neutral condition on the Home-rule question in which it is now admitted to be, it is very unlikely that Mr. Butt's influence will be undermined by the displeasure of the zealots. Perhaps, indeed, the very best end the Home-rule movement could have would be an euthanasia. In place of Home-rule, let the Irish demand the independent administrative organisation of the Irish counties and municipalities, and they will get it ; and will get with it all that would be really good in Home-rule, without any of its fatal consequences.
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