GLADSTONIAN ROME RULE.
[To TBM EDITOR OF THF "SPECTATOR."] SIR,—In the Spectator of March 25th " An Australian* writes as follows of Mr. Gladstone and Home Rule :— "In the speech which introduced his famous Bill, he (Mr. Gladstone) said he only proposed 'to give to Irishmen in Ireland what bad already been given to Frenchmen in Canada, to Dutchmen at the Cape, and to the descendants of the convicts in Tasmania'—o bit of characteristic Gladstessese" (the italics are mine).
Mr. Gladstone's speeches, edited by Messrs. Hutton and Cohen, were published by Methuen and Co., in 1894, and vols. ix. and x. are well known to contain all his public utterances on the Irish Home Rule Question, in Parliament or elsewhere. Will "An Australian " now be so good as to indicate where, either in these volumes or in any other records, Mr. Gladstone is reported to have used any such words as these, which purport so very precisely to be his ipsissima verba, and cannot fail to attract by their pertness and flippancy f The speech " which introduced his famous Bill " in the House of Commons is the one uttered on April 8th,1886. While careful reperusal of this and of his subsequent speeches on the subject will at the present juncture certainly repay any thoughtful person interested in it, I venture to say he will search them in vain .for any language even remotely furnishing foundation for the soi-disant quotation above set out. Considering, therefore, the space and prominence accorded to "An Australian's" letter in your columns, it is surely due to your readers that they shall either be furnished with a reference to the date, place, and occasion of this remarkable utterance of Mr. Gladstone's, or else understand that it has been composed by some one else in a mode which has lately become quits fashionable, with less regard for truth than for " dramatic effect."—I am, Sir,
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