On the Irish Question, too, Lord Randolph dilated in a,
sense decidedly, though not openly, hostile to the policy of the present Administration. Ireland is to be conciliated by every concession short of the one which the Parnellites chiefly insist upon. Though no separate Legislature should be con- ceded to Ireland, yet evictions should be avoided; Irish Members, even if they deserve to go to prison, should not be sent to prison. The police should not be so much embroiled with Irish popular assemblies, and popular assemblies in Ireland should not be forbidden and dispersed. A large measure of local self-government should be promptly accorded to Ireland. And the landlords should be bought out by the aid and intervention of the local bodies thus established, which should be made primarily responsible for raising and paying the interest on the purchase-money of the estates bought from the landlords and transferred to the tenants. Finally, the disposition to assert the hopelessness of concession to Irish-wishes is, according to Lord Randolph Churchill, what Mr. Dickens used (in one of his latest and worst efforts at political carie,ature)to call " Podsnappay,"—a sort of unctuous and foolish dogmatism which expects to get rid of every serious evil by ignoring it and declining altogether to enter-
tarn the notion of recognising it. Whether Lord Salisbury or Mr. Balfour was Lord Randolph Churchill's political " Pod- snap," he did not condescend to indicate. But his speech was an attack on both of them, and virtually on the Government.
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