Lord Hartington's speech was remarkable chiefly for the pithy remark
on the inevitable upshot of the Irish Party's dis- position to take anything Mr. Gladstone would give them as a lever by which they might extract a great deal more. " I have not the smallest doubt that they will conscientiously follow the advice which I remember hearing described by a Scotch Member as having been given to him on his entrance into Parliament. His friend said to him : Be always asking for all you can think of, be always taking all you can get, and when you have got it, be always asking for more." For the rest, Lord Hartington commented with great force on the evident tendency of the Gladstonians to give up all control of the Constabulary at the very crisis when its services would be most wanted. He bad never met with a stranger anticipation than that it would be safe to dispense with a trained and discip- lined force at the very time when it was proposed to excite the
most violent opposition in the North of Ireland to the whole structure of the Irish political system. Lord Hartington was. hopefril, however, that this crisis would, never arrive, relying• perhapsa little too much on the analogy of the adage : " When tliteveedull out, honest men come by their own," He might well, however, have recommended to the Tories and Liberal Unionists. to reflect on the equally certain truth that when honest men fall out, thieves are apt to come by what is not their own.
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