MR. GLADSTONE'S HOME-RULE POLICY.
go THY EDITOR OF THY " BPRCTATOR."1 Sin,In the Spectator of January 2nd, you say that " Mr. Gladstone bad just sprung the Home-rule policy on the nation." (p. 4.) On December 5th : " The Unionists are bound to dwell on Mr. Gladstone's violent and sudden change of attitude," &c. The Duke of Argyll, in writing to a corre- spondent on November 18th last, said : " We know also that at a memorable crisis Lord Hartington was not entrusted by Mr. Gladstone with his new and suddenly conceived designs." A would-be Member of Parliament said : " The chief charac- teristic developed by Mr. Gladstone in .1886 was mistrust of his own Cabinet ; " and Mr. T. W. Russell : " Mr. Gladstone jumped right into the enemy's country." Let Lord Harting- ton answer these fables. On March 5th, 1886, Lord Harting- ton was entertained by the Eighty Club; and at that time, it
will be remembered, Mr. Gladstone's Home-rule Ministry was in existence. "Now, gentlemen," he said, " I am not going to say one word of complaint or charge against Mr. Gladstone for the attitude he has taken up on the question of Home. rule. I think no one who has read or heard during a long series of years the declarations of Mr. Gladstone on the ques- tion of self-government in Ireland can be surprised at the tone of his present declarations. When I look back to those de- clarations that Mr. Gladstone made in Parliament, which have not been infrequent; when I look to the increased defi- niteness given to those declarations in his address to the electors of Mid-Lothian and in his Mid-Lothian speeches,—I say, when I consider all these things, I feel that I have not, and that no one has, any right to complain of the declarations which Mr. Gladstone has recently made on this subject." Comment on the above is surely uncalled-for, and all those who indulge in such freaks of fancy should take the now Duke of Devonshire into their counsels.—I am, Sir, &c.,
OBSERVER.
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