without the assent of the British people became difficult, if not
impossible. It does not lie in the mouth of Gladstonians to say that the
measure of 1886 was unjust. It was laid before the country as a
compromise which was just to England and to Ireland. The Irish leaders,
we were told, accepted the proposal, just as we are told that they
accept the proposed constitution of 1893. If the acceptance was honest,
then in 1886 they agreed to a bargain far more favourable to England
than the contract now pressed on our acceptance. If their acquiescence
was a mere pretence, what trust can we place in the assertion that they
accept the arrangement of 1893?

However this may be, it is clear that England is now offered a position
of weakness and of inferiority such as she has never occupied during the
whole course of her history. What is the meaning or justification of the
proposed surrender by England of every compensation for Irish Home Rule
which was offered her in 1886?

For this surrender Gladstonians assign but two reasons.

The presence of the Irish members at Westminster is, it is said, a
concession to the wishes of Unionists.

This plea, even were it supported by the facts of the case, would be
futile. It might pass muster with disputants in search of a verbal
triumph, but to any man seriously concerned for the welfare of the
nation must appear childishly irrelevant. The welfare of the State
cannot turn upon the neatness of a _tu quoque_; retorts are not reasons,
and had every Unionist, down from the Duke of Devonshire to the present
writer, pressed in 1886 for the retention of the Irish members at
Westminster, the controversial inexpertness of the Unionists seven years