There was also a very interesting part of Lord Hartington's
speech in which he dwelt on the heavy responsibility which Mr. Gladstone had expressly laid upon his shoulders in 1886 for refusing to accept the terms of peace with Ireland which Mr. Gladstone had proposed. "I shall never forget the appeal which he addressed to us, and especially to me, as to the immense responsibility which we were taking in rejecting, or seeking to reject, the measure. He told us, and told us truly, that in Ireland it was not merely a question of a disturbance sapped
or breaking-up of social order, but that social orderwas
and undermined that they had a remedy which they believed would go to the root of the disease and prove effective; and because we had no such remedy to propose and no specific panacea which we could say was absolutely certain to remedy the disease, we were told we were taking an enormous responsi- bility on ourselves in rejecting the remedy which they believed to be an effective remedy." Lord Hartington fully admitted the weight of the responsibility, which he evidently had felt very deeply ; but he maintained that "recent events" had amply justified the grave though reluctant judgment on which he had acted five years ago ; and we believe that the country will agree with him that he has now been fully justified, both intellectually and morally, by the issue.
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