Mr. Morley, in his first speech, insisted that it was
impossible, and would be dishonourable, to go back about Home-rule, He
would leave the Unionist Liberals alone to meditate on their position. He would argue the question with perfect tolerance, for he admitted its difficulty, and he would anathematise no one; but on Home-role in some shape satisfactory to Ireland, he would positively insist. Mr. Gladstone last Session carried concession up to, if not even beyond, what he himself should have thought the limit of wisdom. The same line was taken by Mr. Fowler, who, however, went further when he appealed to all Unionists who were anxious only for the supremacy of the Parliament and the integrity of the Kingdom, to join them on the ground that they too (the Gladstonians) are as anxious as anybody to enforce that supremacy and to secure that integrity. We can only reply that if they are thus anxious, they have never- theless hardly even attempted to sketch any plan by which the supremacy of the English Parliament can be made in any sense a reality, without making the legislative independence of Ireland a mockery, a delusion, and a snare.
