Sir Henry Jaines made a very eloquent speech at Belfast
on Wednesday to the Liberal Unionists, the chief text of which was Mr. Gladstone's description of the modern op,. ponents of Home-rule in Ulster as " degenerate " descendants of the Irish Protestants of 1800. " The charge is, that you are not as his Nationalist allies are, and that you have not acted as they have done. It is true. You have murdered no one ; you have mutilated no one ; you have not even boycotted any one. You have fulfilled all your obligations honestly ; you have fulfilled your duty towards your neighbour ; but then, you are degenerate. If you will convert this charge of Mr. Gladstone's into positive and concrete language, instead of allowing it to remain in an abstract form, it cornea to this,— that you ought, until November 17th last, to have been the followers of Mr. Charles Stewart Parnell, and since that 17th November last you ought to have been the followers of Mr. Timothy Healy ; and you are degenerate, you know you are degenerate, because you have not followed these two leaders." In that case, said Sir Henry James, Grattan himself had been not less degenerate, for he died a supporter of the Union which he had so strenuously opposed ; and the same degeneracy had been attributable to Lord Plunket. The Scottish nation, too, had been degenerate in precisely the same sense. Indeed Sir Henry James might have added that if it is degenerate to come round to the Union after supporting a policy of Home- rule, it is no less degenerate to come round to a policy of religious equality and Catholic emancipation after supporting a policy of persecution.
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