This speech made a great sensation in the House. Mr.
Parnell indicated a cautious approval. Mr. Wallace was very bitter on the billings and cooings which had been going on between Irish Members and the Government. He had at first supposed that Mr. Balfour was about to propose something that would encourage mixed educa- tion, the dislike to which in Ireland he had described as an evil; but, to his astonishment and dismay, he found that, on the contrary, Mr. Balfour was proposing to increase the evil. He would offer to this policy the most lively opposition, and he did not think that if the Government were counting on driving a wedge into the Opposition by separating the Parnellites from the Radicals, the wedge would in this case prove to be a successful mechanical contrivance. Mr. E. Robertson was still more vehement in denouncing Mr. Balfour's policy, and expressed his opinion that the Parnellites, if they remained faithful to the views they had just expressed, would drive a very big wedge between them and the Radical Party. The Radicals were but a small group on Wednesday, so many of them having escaped from their political drudgery ; but amongst those who remained, the effervescence at this speech of Mr. Balfour's was extremely loud and significant.
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