HOME-RULE AND PARTY GOVERNMENT.
[To THE EDITOR OF TIlE " SPECTATOR:1 would invite believers in the party system of govern- ment as perpetual and universal to mark what is now before them. Of those among the leading Liberals who voted for Mr. Gladstone's Home-rule Bills, Mr. Morley alone seems to be firm in the faith, and he is accordingly translated from Ireland to India. The rest 'either renounce Home-rule or are manifestly seeking to get rid of it by indefinite postponement. Not one of them evidently would now vote for Mr. Gladstone's measure giving Ireland a Parliament of her own and full representation in the British Parliament besides. The natural surmise is that in voting for a measure so manifestly inde- fensible, not to say insane, and so threatening to the unity of the nation, they bowed to the influence of party. Our Canadian Parliament, professedly loyal, has twice passed resolutions of sympathy with the Home-rule movement, of the tendency of which to endanger the integrity of the United Kingdom its Members must be aware. Here again you have party, fishing for the Irish vote.—I am, Sir, &c.,
Previous page
