Mr. Chamberlain made an excellent speech at Portsmouth on Thursday.
He quoted Mr. Gladstone's determination not to allow Mr. Parnell under any circumstances to be the future ruler of Ireland, and praised it as a very noble deter- mination. But to whom, he asked, was it due that Mr. Parnell is not now the ruler of Ireland ? Why, to that "unhappy, unfortunate, ill-starred abortion of a party," the Liberal Unionist Party. But for them, Mr. Parnell would now in all probability be the constitutional ruler of Ireland. Turning to the General Election, Mr. Chamber- lain said that it would be fought on very different grounds from that of 1886. Then the Irish Home-rule question was the one issue. Now the chief issues would be Labour questions, and the Irish Question would enter into the struggle more negatively than positively. The constituencies would decide whether the Irish issue should or should not be allowed to eclipse and postpone other political issues. Mr. Chamberlain believed that the determination of English electors would be not to allow it to eclipse and postpone those issues, and therefore Mr. Gladstone, who is deeply committed to keep Home-rule in the forefront of the battle, would be defeated, while the present Government would be encouraged to take up these questions in the same spirit in which it has taken up free education and the allotment question.
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