ich it ought no doubt to be
looked upon, of an example of the facility with which a leader guided by
keen sympathy with the real or supposed opinions or emotions of the
moment follows, while apparently he guides, the phases of public
opinion. Candour moreover compels the admission that, if Mr. Gladstone's
action has led some politicians to "find salvation"--according to the
miserable cant of the day--in the adoption of opinions which cannot be
dignified with the name of convictions, many honest men both within and
without the sphere of public life have under the countenance of a great
name been encouraged to avow publicly sympathies with the demand for
Home Rule which have been slowly matured, and have hitherto scarcely
been acknowledged even in the convert's own mind. To any one who
perceives that the force of a movement opposed to the traditions of
English statesmanship must be attributed to some cause beyond the
personal influence of a leader, the idea naturally suggests itself that
the prevalence of conversions to the policy of Home Rule is due to the
power of argument, and that the English people have been brought to see
the expediency of conceding a legislature to Ireland by the same methods
which induced them to abolish the policy of Protection. This notion does
not correspond with known facts. Till a recent date hardly an argument
was addressed to the English public in favour of Home Rule; no great
writer or speaker even aimed at proving to the nation that a reform or
innovation which has been rejected again and again as repeal had more to
recommend it under a new name. Great changes in our institutions or
policy have hitherto been preceded by lengthy, in general by too
lengthy, discussion. The doctrines of Free Trade were established by
Adam Smith seventy years before the abolition of the Corn Laws, and
Protection was not vanquished till Cobden and Bright had, by laborious
controversy, exposed its fallacies in every corner of Great Britain. The
reasons in favour of Catholic Emancipation were stated in their full
force by Burke more than forty years before a Roman Catholic was
admitted to Parliament, and the whole case in favour of the Catholics
had been argued out in the presence of the nation long before the
passing of the Catholic Relief Bill. No movement ever appealed to keener
popular sympathies than the movement for the abolition of slavery. Yet
the Abolitionists made their case out--proved it, as lawyers sa